Tag Archive | "Mexico"

The leaf change has begun in the North Carolina woods… first a few frosts and and walks on crispy roads of crimson and gold. There is no mystery in that but not far from our house there is…

a darker woods with a cabana that contains a hot tub.

This redwood Japanese soaking tub has spring water filled for each use. The water is heated by an immersed wood stove that sits in the tub.

When you sit in the warm water… surrounded by floating autumnal leaves you look…

down into a small creek and then straight up a hill that rises a hundred feet or so and ends on a ridge.

As Merri and I recently sat there… in cool autumnal air but warmed by the heated water I looked up and asked… “What’s up there?”

Ignore the fact that we have sat in this tub for over a decade and never wondered. The question just popped up!

Where is that ridge?

Merri thought it was just off the upper farm road. I thought not. A mystery! Next day I hiked up to be sure. I had missed this piece of land…. despite my scouring and hiking our farm from top to bottom for going on two decades… this was a spot where I had not tread!

This ridge is protected by a cove of forest and I started to hike in… saw that it is a long flat ridge filled with animal trails and mysterious wonder. I stopped dead.

The entrance to Mystery Ridge.

I turned around and left. My plan is not to hike the mystery ridge. Maybe I will later… or better ask Merri and the kids to spread my ashes there when that day comes because this mystery is a gift.

We all need a sense of mystery at the center of our being. What could be better… a secret copse… a hidden glen… some wild potential for adventure… just sitting… quite unknown… exactly in the middle of our farm.

Most readers at this site seek the next great adventure in their lives and here I have one hidden just footsteps from my doorstep. What a gift!

Looking ahead… for the rest of this year there are many opportunities for adventure. Merri and I are conducting Spanish courses and writing camps in Florida and Super Spanish teachers are conducting Super Thinking + Spanish courses north and south.

You can see the entire schedule below but I have asked our Super Spanish teachers to each share a bit about why there may be adventure at their next course.

Suzanne Bandick explains why Puerta Adventuras Mexico might be a great place to learn Super Thinking and Spanish.

The top 10 reasons to visit Puerto Aventuras, Mexico

By: Suzanne Bandick

Shawn and I live in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico and are conducting a Super Thinking + Spanish course there November 26, 27 and 28th, 2012.

Not that anyone really needs more reasons to visit a tropical paradise like Puerto Aventuras or the Mayan Riviera but here are a few reasons that maybe you have not even thought of…

1. Better mental health – Everyone needs a holiday! When you combine sunshine, relaxation, yoga on the beach, watching the boats go by and taking the time to read a good book under a palm tree with your feet in the sand your mental health becomes stronger by the second.

Dolphin in lagoon at Puerto Adventuras, Mexico

2. Better physical health – any of the following is quite good exercise: walking a few uneven sidewalks, dodging bicycles on the pedestrian path, dodging pedestrians on the bicycle path, swimming in really cold fresh water swimming holes in caves called cenotes (needing to raise your body temperature burns calories), body surfing the waves in that gorgeous ocean and don’t forget swimming with the dolphins or diving with the fishes.

3. The wonder of ”what if ”… what if you hadn’t visited here and you missed out on something? You would miss drinking your fruit punch out of a coconut or pineapple for one thing. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to die wondering what that was like.

Puerto Aventuras Beach

4. Satisfaction to yourself – you can check it off as something you wanted to do in your lifetime. Checking things off a list is hugely satisfying. Out of curiosity, what’s next? Wrestling crocks in the Amazon?

5. A gift of energy – visiting Puerto Aventuras and the Mayan Riviera can give you more energy than you have ever known. In fact it gives you so much energy that you must take frequent hammock breaks to decide what to do with all this new found energy.

6. Discovery for any reason! The fact that today is Thursday works… or that you saw a butterfly, a parrot fly by, an iguana, a dolphin, or a sea turtle.

Shops at Puerto Adventuras

7. A gift of youthful skin– the slight humidity is to thank for that. The cosmetics companies are still trying to find a way to bottle it. We get it for free.

8. Precious, delicious seafood – mouth watering shrimp tacos, shrimp burritos, shrimp sautéed in garlic butter, shrimp ceviche, and shrimp with avocado. I don’t know why but I am suddenly dying to eat some shrimp. It is a good thing I live here. By the way, you can substitute mouth watering pork, beef, chicken, fish or beans in any of those dishes.

Puerto Aventuras Restaurant

9. Having fun – you can’t doubt that after reading numbers one to eight. Plus you have many famous ruins to visit nearby like Tulum, Coba and one of the new 7 Wonders of the World – Chitzen Itza. You can swim, snorkel, dive and frolic in cenotes (fresh water caves). Play in Xcaret, Xelha or Xplore adventure parks, swim with the dolphins and zipline through the jungle!

Puerto Aventuras Lagoon waterfall

10. A great bonus …you can have fun learning Spanish in 3 days! Then you can practice during your vacation. The locals will love it and you. You’ll go home with a tan and be smarter! Now that’s win/win.

Puerto Aventuras is on the Caribbean coast of Mexico and is a one hour drive south from the Cancun airport. Hasta Pronto (Spanish for ‘see you soon!’ But you are going to know that and lots more in Spanish soon!) Suzanne.

How appropriate Puerto Aventuras… the Port of Adventure!

Mystery is the heart of adventure. We offer to you in the months ahead a way to “Embarcarse en una aventura”… Set off on an adventure. Hope to see you down there… Suzanne Bandick

I really like these qualities from Suzanne and suggest that you combine your next adventure with learning… and growth at any Super Thinking seminars and courses in Ecuador, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay or Smalltown USA this winter and fall.

Many readers at this site are looking for new places to go… new lifestyles to lead… new opportunities and purpose.

The aim of this series is to stress the importance of following your passions rather than to escape your fears.

Super Thinking Teachers Shawn and Suzanne Bandick teaching in Mexico.

Part of human nature is to look back on the good old days… and making them seem better than they were. Despite the recession… despite the many parts of the global human evolution that are beyond our logic… people are richer today than before.

There are inequities no doubt… which is why we can have a fulfilling purpose… to do what we can to help correct at least one.

One part of this evolution so many of us hate and are trying to escape is the loss of privacy.

I’ll explain why privacy is gone in a moment… but let’s see how it’s going in Mexico.

Excerpts from an article at singularityhub.com entitled “Iris Scanning Set To Secure City in Mexico, Then the World” by Aaron Saenz shows how privacy is being lost in Mexico when it says: GRI’s eye scanning devices are set to launch in Mexico. You can bet they’ll be coming to you, soon. The million-plus citizens of Leon, Mexico are set to become the first example of a city secured through the power of biometric identification. Iris and face scanning technologies from Global Rainmakers, Inc. will allow people to use their eyes to prove their identify, withdraw money from an ATM, get help at a hospital, and even ride the bus. GRI’s eye scanning systems aren’t more secure than others on the market, but they are faster. Large archway detectors using infrared imaging can pick out 50 people per minute, even as they hustle by at speeds up to 1.5 meters per second (3.3 mph). The first phase of the Leon iris and face scanning project has already begun. It is estimated to cost around $5 million and focuses on law enforcement agencies’ security check points. Over the next three years commercial uses will be rolled out with banks leading the charge.

Yesterday we saw how privacy is being lost in Canada… today Mexico… tomorrow the UK.

Let’s look at why and how this appears to be in tune with the nature of things.

Basic global fundamentals for prosperity (there are more people and greater productivity) look good. Here are some of the reasons why.

Ultimate Long Term Economic Fundamentals are Good!

• Demographics – World Gets Younger

• Productivity – Rising All the Time

• Resources Transition – More Sustainable Power

• History – Hundreds of Years of Cycles

• Borders – Hampering Business Erased by Technology

• Politics – Improved With Better Transparency

• Consciousness – We Grow and Evolve

.

These beliefs are based on the way the industrial revolution has evolved over the past several hundred years.

The industrial revolution has been driven by the Economic Cycles of War. The cycle goes like this:

• There is a War • The War Creates New Technology • The New Technology is Domesticated After the War • The New Domesticated Technology Improves Productivity • The Markets Oversell the New Technology • Overheated Markets Collapse when the Bubble Bursts

• The Collapse Creates a Recession that Leads to War

The history of industrial economic expansion shows a regular relationship between long term bear markets, recession and war… between war and post war economic expansion. Study of the S&P 500 showed recessions before WWI, WWII and WWIII (the Cold War that ended in 1980 when the Soviet Union disintegrated).

The last long term bear market began around 1998 and should end around 2013. We have now had the recession. This theory suggests that the current downturn is the final blow before global economics turn around.

So…where is the war?

The key to the war is that it is perceived as such a serious event that all concepts of return on investment in R&D are thrown out the window.

The War Between the States refined the steam engine. WWI brought the internal combustion engine to the forefront. WWII brought jets… chemicals, plastics, fertilizer, radar and numerous technologies that passed into the domestic realm. WWIII was the impulse behind the internet.

Perhaps this war began with the attack on the World Trade Center because it ended the concept of the battlefield. Past wars were fought in a limited way in one place at one time. The warring parties could build up their arms and armies and send them to the battlefield.

Technology erodes the concepts of time and space thus eliminating the battle field.

Battles can be fought anywhere…. anytime.

This evolution of war creates an economic crunch because no nation can afford to be armed everywhere… all the time.

This fact demands a new type of warfare that detects an attack before it takes place and thus the research and development and push is for the eradication of privacy. The new military wants to watch… everyone… all the time… everywhere.

I hate this because watching is a predatory act. We all have our down times and if someone is watching us continuously they know exactly when we are vulnerable. No nation would ever allow this to take place and in my opinion it’s wrong for individuals whether they are government officals or systems or not to have such an ability.

Those who watch are often predators who gain enormous power from this technology. History suggests that power corrupts and corrupt predators are not what we want as our leaders.

If this thinking is correct, what do we do?

#1: Move away from the US?

#2: Live outside the technology.

#3: Keep working.

#4: Beat the algorithms.

We’ll look at the growing importance of algorithms in next week’s message, but Merri and I fall into the “Keep Working” category.

We would never think of retiring because we love what we are doing… much better than fishing, gardening or golf!

Evolution will take place. This series suggest that this change is extremely difficult to escape. Yet we can beat the ravages of government intrusion with our own business that is profitable, fulfilling and fun.

When trying to develop your business concept take the time to figure out what type of business you would like to have, what skill set you bring to the table and what just plain makes you happy doing.

Everyone, absolutely everyone, has a special interest… a passion. Passion makes work fun and easy. What is it that you love to talk about? What do you read? Do you have a hobby? What do you do for fun and games? What are your natural talents? Write these down. (And don’t forget to look right under your nose!)

When you start with what you are passionate about things tend to flow naturally…

PASSION – PURPOSE – MOTIVATION – CREATION

If you are still stuck for good ideas for your business, here are some basic brainstorming techniques and idea boosters. Your goal at the end of your brainstorming is to have three potential business plans:

What special body of knowledge have you learned from your job? What do you do day after day, without even thinking about it (ex., child-rearing, taking care of sick parents, renovation contractor, customs inspector). Could any of these activities, areas where you have developed knowledge (without even thinking about it), be of value to others? Yes? Great! Write these down.

Think about what you do in a typical day, and what you’ve learned from it. What sections of a book store or a magazine shop do you automatically gravitate toward? What kind of TV shows do you tend to like most? Movies? Write these down, too.

What activities do you enjoy most about your current occupation? Is it research? Helping customers achieve their goals? Managing other people? Teaching or explaining things to others? Talking/selling on the phone? Organizing things? Making a process easier? Discovering or creating new products or services? Marketing products? OK. Write these down.

Problems are also a good source for ideas because problems need solutions!

What bugs you? What’s tedious? What does not work for you? We all encounter obstacles, problems, nasty people in the course of whatever it is that we do every day. What are the three biggest problems in your work place? What are your biggest pains as a parent, or as a step-parent, or as a gardener (etc., etc.)? Do you have solutions to these problems? Would they be of value to a lot of people? Yes!!! Write these down!

Now let’s make sure that you haven’t overlooked “ancient history”… Repeat all the questions above, except pretend that you are in a “five years ago” time warp. Yes, ask yourself the same questions, except place yourself where you were five years ago. Next, repeat for 10 years ago. To paraphrase an old saying… “You’ve forgotten more about some things than other folks will ever know.”

We face a new unknown future. We cannot go back… but we can move ahead with great exciting anticipation when we abandon the illusion of the good old days and follow our dreams. I hope these ideas can help you turn your passion into profit in the years ahead.

Having a purpose created micro business enhances the chances of income longevity and is especially satisfying when it empowers others in the process.

With this thought in mind we started our Super Thinking + Spanish teacher program last year and began training our first dozen teachers. This year after 12 months of training they began to set up their own courses and teach.

We are using the stories of success (and failure) in our online continuing education course “Eventful Business – How to Have a Seminar Business” Here is an excerpt from a recent lesson.

Shawn and Suzanne Bandick taught their first course in Mexico last month.

In 2001 Suzanne and Shawn set out on a quest for adventure and a change of culture. They packed up their two kids, and moved from British Columbia, Canada to Mexico. Their children, now young adults and in search of their own adventure and careers have moved back to Canada but Shawn and Suzanne keep their home base in Puerto Aventuras on the Caribbean coast of Mexico just south of Cancun.

In Canada, they built and trained sales and marketing teams for companies. They traveled extensively for business and with their children for pleasure. Then came the question, “Why do we work so hard just so we can go travel? Why don’t we just go and live abroad?” Two years later they liquidated down to what would fit in their Toyota 4 runner and headed south.

Once in Mexico, Shawn opened a real estate office which was another fun adventure making tons of new friends and helping them live their dreams. Suzanne became a writer and a life coach.

They first learned of Super Thinking + Spanish as students and here is their personal testimonial for Super Thinking + Spanish.

“This Spanish course has opened up a whole new world of pleasure and ease in communicating for us. We spent ten years in Mexico struggling to learn Spanish feeling overwhelmed and inadequate in the memorization of the hundreds of verbs and the many conjugations of them that all our tutors told us we needed to do. This course changed everything for us. We are thrilled to now be in a space that speaking in Spanish flows for us! We became teachers because of a desire to empower others and hopefully help them avoid the struggle we went through. This method of teaching definitely empowers people! Imagine learning to speak a new language with ease and joy!”

What do they love about Mexico?

They love the people, the diversity of the culture, the climate, the history hidden in many of the old cities and the warm sand and palm trees.

Their motto is “Live the Adventure” and invite others to their Super Thinking + Super Spanish class.

Here is a report of their first course.

The Beginning

Because we ran into such huge price resistance with the people who were left here at this time and we really wanted to teach a class – we priced it at a special one time introductory locals price.

Everyone was given the same price.

At this time we have four couples and one single registered and paid for a total of nine people.

Two couples paid US dollars to us through Paypal and the rest paid in person in the equivalent in pesos.

It’s great because now we have pre met everyone who will be attending. Everyone is thrilled and grateful for the price and will be walking talking local testimonials for us.

We have no cost for a room as we are holding it in our condo. Even with the purchase of an easel and paper and copies and our Spanish native speaker we will have a nice profit.

Which we are very happy with for a first effort in slow season. Also, we have built up interest for the fall for all that are unable to take it now as they are no longer in town.

After Day One

Wow! Wow! Wow! How happy we are. How rewarding. All 9 students showed up on time, ready and excited. They were all fully participating. Our pronunciation coach is outstanding … and it turns out a neat printer. He worked with us like we have been working together for years. He has perfect clear, concise pronunciation.

Our condo set up great for the class. The day was perfect we had sun on the ocean in the background.

Everyone left day one seeming pretty empowered. Oh and one fellow (who has only been here about 4 months) had his pronunciation change from really bad and struggling at the beginning of the day to showing a really remarkable improvement by the end.

How cool is that?

Feeling good about tomorrow. Thanks again for this great opportunity. Were your ears ringing? We talked about you a lot to the class.

Your proud teachers in Mexico.

Day Two

This was just posted by a student on FaceBook after Day Two

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

A slight challenge this time of year in Mexico is most of the foreigners that live here part time have gone home. We knew that when we set the date but we really wanted a class under our belts and to make some money.

We also held the class Thurs/Friday/Sat as we ran into several people who were hesitant to come because Sunday is a church day.

By altering the date by one day we got two more couples to commit.

Everyone prepaid even if it meant we met them for a coffee.

Everyone was thrilled and grateful for the price and now will be walking talking local testimonials for us.

Costs: We had no cost for a room as we held it in our condo. This worked very well with the addition of some folding tables we had or borrowed placed behind existing couches.

We provided tea, coffee (we had attendees make it as we do not drink coffee) water and snacks (granola bars, oranges, bananas, and some squares I baked) for break time and they went out for lunch.

Our condo actually provided a very personal and relaxed atmosphere. We believe this worked in our favor.

We are very happy with this for a first effort in slow season. Also, we have built up interest for the fall for all that are unable to take it now as they are no longer in town.

What do we get from networking?

We get possible students and definitely new friends. This has turned out to be a very rewarding exercise indeed.

We have a book recommendation: Yes Man by: Danny Wallace … it is the story of a man who decides to say yes to everything. It reminds me of the opportunities we created by getting out and networking.

We have one class planned right now for Canada this summer but are working on possibly two more for while we are there simply by networking with friends and acquaintances.

We also have one more class planned for Mexico in November but have let everyone know if they can pull a group together we will consider a class at any time. We collect names all the time.

After experiencing the full rewards of teaching one class – you bet we want to do more. So many people need this! We are empowering people.

END OF EXCERPT

Super Thinking + Spanish empowers people… makes them smarter and often healthier as they learn Spanish too. This is a good way to profit and have an excellent micro business.

Learn Spanish in Three Days

Learn Spanish in Three Days ONLINE

The “Learn Spanish in Three Day Course” is now available online.

Read below to see why we are offering our Super Spanish course online for the first time.

Speaking Spanish is a huge benefit on its own. You can become one of the rare North Americans who can get along in Spanish speaking countries. You can be one of the special people who can communicate with 10 million non-English speakers in the USA. Spanish is the second most used language in the USA. There are more Spanish speakers than speakers of Chinese, French, German, Italian, Hawaiian, and the Native American languages combined. According to the Census Bureau, Spanish is the primary language of nearly 50 million people in the US. This is the largest Spanish-speaking community outside of Mexico. Only half of these speakers also speak English “very well,” and 19% do not speak Spanish at all.

You can tap into all this potential when you speak Spanish. Yet there are more benefits.

An article in England’s leading newspaper, the Telegraph, entitled “Why learn a foreign language? Benefits of bilingualism” (1) sum up the biggest benefit of learning a second language and increased intelligence. The article says: “Learning a foreign language is more than just a boost to your CV or handy for traveling. It will make you smarter, more decisive and even better at English. Physiological studies have found that speaking two or more languages is a great asset to the cognitive process. The brains of bilingual people operate differently than single language speakers, and these differences offer several mental benefits.”

The article then explains studies that show seven cognitive advantages gained from learning a foreign language.

#1: You become smarter #2: You build multitasking skills #3: You stave off Alzheimer’s and dementia #4: Your memory improves #5: You become more perceptive #6: Your decision-making skills improve #7: You improve your English

Does it sound impossible to learn Spanish in three days? Yes, it is impossible when you try to learn Spanish in the old, traditional way.

Though you may choose to take more time using this course to learn Spanish, thousands of our readers have learned at our Spanish courses.

There is a scientific method of learning… proven and described in numerous best selling books that create educational jumps by making education natural, easy and fun. This course works because it is education without stress!

This method was created and refined by the Bulgarian educational master, Georgi Lozanov, who transformed the entire Soviet educational system to such a degree that this third world country beat the USA into space.

Merri was lucky to be one of a handful of students outside of Bulgaria who were allowed to be taught this system in the early 70s. She practiced this unique and remarkable form of education for four decades. It was a delight!

Merri and I began integrating these techniques with other shamanic and educational tactics we had gained in our global travels and then applied them to teach Spanish in three days.

The course has been proven again and again by the thousands who have used this system. You can read a few of the many raves we have received from delegates who have learned from the Super Thinking Spanish course we created.

Here are a few quotes from delegates of the course.

One delegate from St. Louis wrote: Hi Gary, Just ended forty-five years in dentistry last week, and I’m on to a new career. What is my new career? Still formulating, but the eye -opening,mind expanding Super-Spanish course last weekend in St. Louis surely shows me the opportunity exists to expand my horizons.

Besides having a lot of nice people to learn our new language; the methods Merri and you developed proved to be just what you said they would be. We all and I in particular relaxed our way to new learning. I feel so very comfortable with the basis of my new language skills that I know I will be spitting out great Spanish sentences by the time I reach Ecuador in October. Last year I spent six weeks in Ecuador and now I plan on conversing with the people.

Today’s excerpt of your newsletter really hit home. You do what you say you will. There are no surprises or hidden sales tricks. The only tricks are beneficial to our learning. Thank you for a wonderful experience that I was quite unable to grasp how you would pull it off. You did, however, and I look forward to other courses that you offer, and I have absolutely no doubt they also will work beneficially. Best regards, Denis Molloy.

Another wrote about the Super Spanish course: Buenos Dias, here is a testimonial for Super Thinking-Super Spanish. Please feel free to use all or part in promotions for the course. In addition, you may give my email address to any prospect “on the fence” about enrolling. Yesterday, in Cotacachi, Ecuador, I finished Super Spanish. I had high expectations for the course and they were exceeded.

After three days, I can speak Spanish in complete sentences. In simple conversations, such as buying groceries or ordering a meal, I can make myself understood. I think that’s incredible!

Although I am far from the competence level of a native speaker, I feel I’ve taken a giant step forward in learning Spanish so that I can experience the people and culture of Ecuador. The foregoing benefits would have more than justified the time and money I invested in Super Spanish. And learning some Spanish was not the most important benefit I got from the course.

Prior to leaving the USA, I had felt for some time that the pace of life there was unhealthy for me (and for most people) and I did nothing about it.

I’ve thought about the pace issue during the course. One of the key elements Merri Scott designed into Super Spanish is placing the student in the optimal state for learning. In class, the past three days, I’ve been re-introduced to guided journeys and introduced to the calming effects of Baroque music (www.sundaybaroque.org). What a blessing! I’m inclined to make one or both a daily part of my life. Rob Christi. Cotacachi, Ecuador

Another attendee from a course wrote: “I took this incredible class a few weeks ago, and I would like to tell anyone that is interested, that it is an amazing three days of learning with lots of laughs included. You leave everyday wanting to learn more and are so excited to do so.

“Other Spanish classes and tutoring made us feel like it would take forever to get to the point where we could put it into practice, but this method gave us a more fluent use for everyday life almost immediately AND the confidence to use it. It is a fantastic way to show people how much they know and give confidence to learn and use Spanish creating a momentum.

“They made learning Spanish easy and fun in a very relaxed, comfortable atmosphere. I would definitely recommend this course. Even if you know some Spanish, this helps make it easier because of the less stress that no verb conjugations gives you. This gives you more confidence in yourself to try and speak it more.

“The stress free atmosphere and tons of interaction and participation were very conducive to learning. The relaxation techniques alone are worth the price. The fact that I can now feel more comfortable conversing in Spanish with my new friends and neighbors is priceless. Muchas, muchas gracias.”

“I loved the relaxed environment. I picked up quite a lot of new vocabulary. I found this course very informative about how the language works, how I can make sentences and understand others better! Muchas Gracias! I had a call from Telcel (the local phone company) after our second class and I was able to speak and understand them for the first time. Despacio (meaning slowly) … a great word! Everyone should take this course before they pick up bad habits.”

“I liked how simply the course was organized and the positive attitude about learning. Thank you so much for helping me to learn Spanish!”

“I liked the laid back yet professional approach. I highly recommend this new, relaxing method of learning Spanish, I feel a lot more confident in the delivery of my words and sentences. It was taught in an excellent and very professional way.

“It was a very enjoyable class.”

How The Course Works

The first tactic is to use Baroque music in the learning process.At least three best selling books, “Superlearning”, the “Mozart Effect” and “Superlearning 2000” have revealed insights about how to learn and think more powerfully based on systems drawn from the Bulgarian educational master, Dr. Georgi Lozanov. Merri Scott was among just a few who learned directly from Lozanov.

The second tactic uses 17 unique lessons to provide Spanish fluency in a short time. Let me prove to you how this tactic works by teaching you hundreds of Spanish words in less than 30 seconds.

Here is the proof.

“Most words in English that end in ION are almost identical, just pronounced differently. For example action is accion, education-educacion, manipulation- manipulacion, etc.”

There you have it. How long did it take you to read the sentence? You now know hundreds of Spanish words that you will never forget.

See examples of the words you already know below.

How long would have taken you to memorize all those words? How soon would you have forgotten them?

This is just one of seventeen Spanish lessons in the course.

The next lesson teaches how to pronounce each of the nouns.

Then, the third lesson teaches almost as many verbs, almost as quickly.

The fourth lesson shows how to avoid conjugating verbs by sticking with the infinitive (far easier than it sounds). This simple lesson leaves a person sounding like a Spanish professor without ever conjugating a verb.

Lesson five shows how to sound infinitely polite and yet get almost anything desired in Spanish.

Lesson six gives valuable connectors and the seventh lesson triples the Spanish capacity with three words for “yesterday,” “now” and “tomorrow”.

By the end of three days you feel comfortable speaking Spanish.

Plus the system is Impro-Dynamic. This means your Spanish keeps getting better even though you do not seem to be studying… practicing… or speaking Spanish.

I was amazed by this as I traveled back and forth from the USA to Ecuador. The longer I was away from Ecuador… the better my Spanish became. My second language was automatically improving. The self improving feature comes because you learn to create Spanish sentences rather than remember them. The portion of the brain that creates is more powerful than the portion that recalls. When your mind creates something… it owns it! You do not have to remember .

During the course you learn 4005 Spanish words that you already know .

You then learn how to create Spanish sentences from these words.

Throughout the course you learn how to pronounce the sentences you create.

When the course ends… the mind keeps working… and creating… so next time you begin to speak Spanish you’ll be surprised . You improve even though you have not actively worked on your lingual skill.

Due to the difficulty of getting groups together to learn this valuable technique, we created an online program for subscribers to use the Super Spanish course at home. This is available at the highly reduced price of $79.

I’ll be in touch personally via email with each person who signs up for this course to see how it works or what is required to make it better. Once this test is complete, we plan to offer the program on a larger scale and at a much higher price.

The ONLINE course has our, full satisfaction or money back, guarantee. Try Super Spanish for 60 days. If not fully satisfied, simply let us know for a full refund.

Maggie wrote: It didn’t really seem possible that we would be speaking and understanding Spanish in only 3 days but the course made it happen in a very supportive learning environment. I would highly recommend this course for anyone wishing to learn “practical Spanish”. The teaching methods, use of relaxation, the use of native Spanish speakers for pronunciation and the teachers themselves who were approachable and helpful and always positive made this a very valuable class.

This course improved my self confidence in my ability to learn and retain a language. It was presented with genuine enthusiasm, great energy and the style of learning is very effective. Gracias! It was a great experience.

Nadine wrote: “Just spent the last 3 days in the most wonderful learning environment learning Spanish. What an amazing learning experience!! First day out of class and I could not stop thinking in Spanish WOW!! I am amazed by how much I learned, retained and how much more is showing up now that I am out of class. And the best part is THERE WAS NO STUDYING!! Indeed this is Super Thinking!!! I would highly recommend this to anyone that has ever had a desire to learn another language or learn anything in record time.

And a few days after that …. As I went through my day, just hanging out with my son, I could see myself starting to think in Spanish. At first I thought it was amusing but as it continued and increased I thought “My goodness this is really remarkable amazing” It was really an effortless unfolding. I wasn’t at any point “trying” to think in Spanish, just words I knew would fly across the screen in my mind. And then this afternoon, my son cuddled up on the couch to watch some cartoons on his ipad and was watching Peppa Pig in Spanish…hmm coincidence? I think not, I’m radiating Spanish so much that my son is being influenced! Thanks a million again. This weekend the best learning experience of my life!!

If you have ever had a desire to learn Spanish this is the way to do it! By the end of the first day I had more confidence and more practical ability than I had from any previous courses I had taken. It was fun and relaxed and full of laughter. You will leave this class excited to use what you have learned. Rather than leaving overwhelmed with how much you have yet to learn and master, you are equipped with the knowledge and know how to go out and communicate as well as the excitement to do it!”

Gary noted: “The whole approach is positive and conducive to learning at a level that benefits ALL participants. It is not intimidating and does not set up a pass/fail atmosphere. The presenters are terrific and the results unbelievable. It was relaxed, informal, friendly and effective.”

Twila said: “This class provided a very refreshing and relaxed way of learning. The atmosphere felt very safe to say the words you were practicing. I learned a lot in a way that will make it easy to apply. Starting with conversation is way more fun. How quickly you can learn! It was a great group, great instructors and great stories.

The atmosphere in the classroom was so relaxed that learning Spanish felt like a breeze and not like a painful task. The relaxation exercises are really conducive to language learning. We learned A LOT in a short time and it was fun and the environment was non-threatening.”

Brigitte sent this: “Buenos Dias, Suzanne. su clase de espanol es excelente! Muchas Gracias! I have already done what you suggested and went into the program listening to the music and going over the lessons. I know: Repetition……reinforcement…..thinking in the new language….it’s all part of it. I loved your course and will certainly recommend it to friends. Who knows….I might feel the urge and have the opportunity to repeat it at your beautiful place in Puerto Aventuras…..Quien sabe? Hasta otro dia y saludos a su familia.”

Marie wrote: “I would highly recommend this course. The amount covered in 3 days is amazing! All with no stress. The correlation lessons and pronunciation practice has greatly reduced my anxiety to go out and use my Spanish. I really enjoyed the whole process and thank you for the take away tools.”

Four important points in the article are shown in excerpts below with my comments to show what has been wrong with traditional Spanish courses and why the Super Thinking tactic is perfect for this program.

The article begins: WASHINGTON, D.C. — Many Americans don’t learn a second or a third language from birth, let alone a language that the CIA or U.S. Foreign Service might want. The situation has forced U.S. government agencies to learn how to cultivate the most talented second-language speakers from among college students with little to no other-language expertise.

“In U.S. education, we don’t develop early bilinguals,” said Catherine Doughty, a language expert at the University of Maryland.

Doughty spoke as part of a panel on Feb. 19 during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Washington, D.C.

She and other speakers described the typical U.S. second-language program as being a series of disjointed classes where students often repeated what they had learned before.

“Imagine math [programs] where the middle school says, ‘We don’t have any idea about what you studied,’ so you learn it again. It’s the same with high school,” said Robert O. Slater, director of the U.S. National Security Education Program.

MY COMMENT. This is why traditional Spanish courses often do not work. They create two obstacles up front… memorization of conjugation and vocabulary. Super Thinking + Spanish avoids both these obstacles.

The article continues: Finding the best

Government agencies aren’t alone in trying to recruit multilingual speakers; U.S. corporations covet such skills for doing business in the era of globalization.

MY COMMENT: This is why speaking Spanish adds value to each of us as a person. We become especially useful in an increasingly global multi lingual society.

The article explained how Doughty and her colleagues used tests to train up cognitive processes related to language learning, such as the ability to hold information in the brain while using it for learning. The tests sought to predict those who can succeed despite everything stacked against them.

The article reviewed changes in the brain. Lee Osterhout is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His lab used electrodes placed on the scalp to measure the electrical activity created by the signals of brain cells. That allowed the researchers to see differences in the brain patterns among language learners and fluent speakers. They found some surprising results.

The article pointed out: Repeated studies of French language students showed that their brains responded differently to real French words compared with fake words after just two weeks of classes, even if the students themselves could not tell such words apart.

“From knowing nothing to a little bit, [there are] huge changes in the brain,” Osterhout pointed out.”[From] knowing a little to knowing a lot, [it is] much more subtle.”

MY COMMENT: This is why Super Thinking + Spanish works so well. The three day course focus entirely on making the huge change and ignores the subtle. From there the perfection and subtle change. The three day course prepares the learner to speak Spanish immediately and then make the subtle changes in their day to day life.

The article also said: Another surprise came from studies of Spanish-speaking immigrants, because neither age nor language proficiency seemed to predict how quickly the immigrants picked up English. Instead, the fastest learners showed both the greatest motivation to learn and a willingness to use English at every opportunity despite being bad at it (at first).

MY COMMENT: This is the other reason why Super Thinking plus Spanish works. This three day course gets the delegates speaking and thinking Spanish all the time so they can use and/or think Spanish every day… and not badly even from the beginning. In this way the education grows even when Spanish is not being spoken.

The Super Thinking course first integrates the brain. Students learn better with relaxed concentration. Then the course teaches them 17 simple lessons so they know 4005 words in Spanish and can use them to create sentences. In this way, you can learn Spanish in just three days.

Gary

Learn how to speak Spanish in just three days using Frequency Modulation

Today the key to success is the ability to keep up with change.

This is why we are increasing our focus on super thinking through frequency modulation. We need to be smarter to adapt to faster change and frequency modulation can help us absorb… retain and recall information better and faster. We prove this in our Super Thinking + Spanish course which teaches delegates to communicate on Spanish in just three days.

We want to thank you and Gary plus all the others for making the class such a fun and rewarding experience. I took Spanish as an undergraduate and lasted two days before dropping the class due to my own anxieties. Over the years I have tried to learn French, Italian, and Spanish yet again using a variety of methods such as Rosetta Stone, Berlitz etc. and was never successful. I finally feel like I can be successful at learning to converse at Spanish–in fact already feel successful! Thanks so much for teaching an old dog some new tricks. We’re both looking forward to continuing the learning process, having fun doing so, and taking more classes.

There is a way to learn Spanish that enhances health and wealth. I call it Super thinking + Spanish and it was created by Merri using three secrets gained from years in language schools followed by 43 years of living around the world.

Creativity, humanitarianism and prosperity come in many forms, but all of them require three things, understanding, communications and inspiration.

Here are shots of delegates at a Super Thinking Plus Spanish course in Mt. Dora, Florida.

Spanish is the second largest language in the world. Chances are a huge Spanish speaking population lives near you. Yet our language system did not teach us how to communicate with or understand this culture.

Learning Spanish is valuable and important. Now there is way, to enjoy a long weekend as you learn Spanish at a very affordable price.

Toronto teacher Rick Brown

To learn from Super Thinking is fun! In three days you solve one of the biggest communications problems that faces a great deal of the English speaking civilization.

The course has two or three instructors. Each Super Thinking Plus Spanish course has at least two teachers… one teaching the Super Thinking science and one native Spanish speaker… sometimes two teach the Spanish.

Unlock the power of your untapped knowledge.

There are numerous little known, but scientifically proven ways to enhance the speed, accuracy and efficiency of your decision making process for greater wealth, health and happiness. In just three days you can gain almost amazing learning skills. Plus you become skilled in Spanish as a bonus.

In just three days?

Sound too good to be true?

This is not a gimmick nor a trick. At least three best selling books, Superlearning, the Mozart Effect and Superlearning 2000 have revealed insights about how we can learn and think more powerfully based on systems drawn from the Bulgarian, Dr. Georgi Lozanov.

In 1980 Superlearning sold over two million copies and showed how the Lozanov learning system blended long-tested sciences of yoga with contemporary physiology and psychology so people could learn faster and better.

This book exposed this fact and made the system so popular that Dr. Lozanov was allowed to visit the US from Bulgaria to teach this system to just a very few people so they could pass on this vital information on how to learn and think in a more natural, powerful way so we can enjoy life and enhanced memory more.

Merri was among those few who learned how and is licensed to teach the Lozanov system from this Bulgarian master. She has organized a practical course on how to learn faster and better.

With her modified system, you will learn how to think and learn more powerfully in just three days. To prove how good you will be with this process, you learn Spanish as a side benefit.

The learning system you gain expands on Dr. Lozanov’s original work and offers new insights into tapping human potential, drawing from ancient and modern tactics for quick learning such as subliminal memory, music, nutrition, and productivity.

There are three scientific reasons why this course will change your learning capacity forever (and help you speak Spanish in just four days).

This seminar uses frequency modulation (in music and a number of other ways) to integrate brain waves so the process of absorbing, processing and recalling information is vastly accelerated. This brings forth the three C’s: Calm, Clarity and Coherence.

FM Plus Frequency Modulation/Full Mode Plus

FM Plus works by focusing on the learner first… the data second. FM Plus “grows the learner” rather than just expands the information. The explosion of data we must all process everyday means there is too much information to process already. Let’s view this learning in terms of plumbing to outline what “Growing the Learner” means.

If you have 4.5 inches of information flowing through a 4 inch learning pipe, the solution is not to add another inch of information. The answer is to first create a six inch pipe and then an even larger pipe…a never ending expansion of abilities!

First you learn how to evoke the power of the senses thus super-charging memory. Ever hear a song from twenty, thirty or forty years past and in a snap know all the words, the tune and remember with who and where your heard it decades ago? Learn how to use ten cycle music to gain almost super human thinking powers.

Dr. Lozanov was totally committed to learning without stress, to enjoy the thrill of relaxed, leisurely learning. These are just two, whole learning, super-thinking tactics you gain at this course.

What is your desire? Do you want to speak Spanish, French, German, Chinese or any language? Would you like to golf better or accomplish more in school? Would you like to easily, quickly zip through projects, chores, reports? Merri’s “Super Thinking” course can help you learn any subject two-to-five times faster, in exciting and innovative ways.

The techniques you gain will help unlock the quantum potential we all possess. This evolutionary program shows how certain types of music can enhance learning and how even altered nutrition can make you a startling 25 percent smarter, how subliminal messages can increase your energy and thinking process, plus much, much more.

Merri’s system follows and builds upon what was taught in the Superlearning, the Mozart Effect and Superlearning 2000 books plus includes techniques and strategies that she has gained in her 42 years of global travel and study with educational masters around the world.

This is a course that shows you how to increase your mental power to better succeed in the 21st century when we can otherwise be overwhelmed by information.

The system you gain is built from old and new sources ranging from yoga to contemporary Russian science, and ultimate zone training already used by many Olympic champions.

“Super Thinking plus Spanish” presents new ways to use music to supercharge your mind. The knowledge you gain about smart food and super nutrition allows you to enhance productivity and creativity.

The tactics you gain enhance your ability to absorb… retain and recall information.

Once these concepts of enhancing your mental powers with music are understood, you will know how to create your own program and build new skills at work in study and play.

Second you gain seventeen, easy to use learning techniques that can help you gain any romantic language in much less time than traditional learning techniques.

Why Spanish?

Spanish is the third most spoken language in the world. Chances are a huge Spanish speaking population lives south of and around you. Yet our North American language system did not teach us how to communicate with or understand this culture. We can all do with a bit of Spanish.

Yet who has the time?

You do! Fluency in a language is considered to come when you know 1,200 words. To prove that it is possible to gain this and much more, let me share just one of the 17 tactics Merri taught me that gives you thousands of Spanish words in less than three minutes

Here are the thousands of Spanish words lesson #1:

All words in Spanish and English that end in ION are almost identical, just pronounced differently. For example action is accion, education educacion, manipulation, manipulacion, etc.

Now you already literally know hundreds of Spanish nouns. This is just one of seventeen Spanish lessons you gain. The next lesson teaches you how to pronounce each of these nouns. Then you learn in a third lesson almost as many verbs, almost as quickly.

Third, you learn how to avoid conjugating verbs by sticking with the infinitive (far easier than it sounds). This simple lesson leaves you sounding like a Spanish professor (believe me I know as I use this tactic every day when in Ecuador)

There are many other lessons. For example lesson five shows how to sound infinitely polite and yet get almost anything you want in Spanish. Lesson six gives you the valuable connectors and the seventh lesson triples your Spanish capacity with yesterday, now and tomorrow.

By the end of the three day course you will feel quite comfortable speaking Spanish without stress!

Yet your Spanish will just be one result from learning how to think better! You will be able to use your new learning powers in amazing ways. For example this attendee at our last course wrote:

“Hi Gary & Merri, You two are the BEST!!! Your Seminar was fantastic! I am so excited. I had procrastinated fulfilling my continuing education for my Broker’s License and then just before my surgeries, I realized by expiration date isn’t Nov. 12th – it is Sept 12th. Well, as you can see prior to taking your course I had only completed 3 units of the required 45 units. I thought I would take your course and then complete my remaining 42 units over the next 2 weeks. However, I took one class exam on Saturday night, August 27th. I didn’t even take the cellophane off the required Course manuals until after I saw the two of you today less than 5 hours ago! I used your techniques and completed 39 units of continuing education today. I have now completed all 45 units. All of my test scores were in the 90.6-96% range. My course exam information is listed below. I just wanted to let you know how valuable your course was to me. Thanks again!” Suzy Kurinsky

Travel, accommodations and food are not included.

Gary

Here are what delegates wrote about a recent Super Thinking + Spanish seminar. Hi Gary & Merri – First, Merri, thanks for the great home made chili dinner. It was some of the best I have ever tasted. Also, thanks for the Spanish course. Merri’s technique is truly a breakthrough in learning. I believe I learned more Spanish in four days than I learned in four weeks in a previously attended Costa Rica language school. The Costa Rica school taught a very limited number of memorized words and phrases. Ted.

Another delegate at a Super thinking plus Spanish seminar wrote:Merri’s approach exposed us to a broad variety of works and the technique needed to expand the language. Again, Thanks for the experience.

One attendee wrote: Thank you very much Gary! And I just wanted to say thank you and Merri so much for everything during the seminar. You guys are indeed a shining example of having a business that truly serves others. And thanks for the extra time spent and good things taught to me personally. I have begun to implement them already and will continue to apply them. And you might be interested that waiting for my flight home I ended up sitting next to a woman from Quito and could understand some of what she said in a cell phone conversation. We talked a little and she said that I should visit Ecuador! Thank you again for your real graciousness and acceptance! I will also write to Merri and thank her as well. And I wish that I could do something for you two!

Another wrote:Thank you! We always look forward to spending time and learning about so many fascinating things. Like Minded people and Vivaldi! What could be better? You and Merri are very special to us!

Another sent this note:Hello Merri, Thank you for the wonderful workshop on Super Learning + Spanish! I really enjoyed the workshop and getting to know you and Gary. I am definitely going to take more of the courses that you and Gary are teaching. I can see several ways to apply what I learned in the classes I teach.

Since I returned home, I have purchased some of the CDs of Baroque music and thought about which specific pieces will work best in different parts of my classes. I am also reading Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra. I found your discussion of this book to be very helpful in showing how to balance one’s life. I have adjusted my daily schedule, and I can already notice a difference in my productivity.

Thank you for sending the file of the 4005 Spanish words. This will be very helpful in my daily review of Spanish.

Another emailed this:Every day I’m becoming more proficient in Spanish. As I get ready to do something, I think about how I would say it in Spanish. Thank you again for a Super Workshop! With love and blessings.

Another: Gary and Merri, It certainly was an interesting and intriguing four days for me. I enjoyed the Spanish but even more so, all the tentacles that extended during those four days that went into so many different directions.

I grew up in a very SQUARE box with loving and intelligent parents but my world remained within this box, unable to see beyond those walls, as I was never encouraged to “think outside the box”.. Mike has been opening doors and leading me outside this box but because of my upbringing I have not completely embraced or understood what was beyond those doors he opened for me. As I have gotten older I have become more open to the world outside those doors yet those old tapes continue to play and I have not been able to completely release myself and experience all that can be.

Another shared this:Listening to the two of you during our time together has suddenly got me to thinking, and although some of the ideas still seem foreign to me, I am at a point in my life now where I can say, “anything is possible” and I am now willing to embrace and allow myself to experience the world of possibility and let it take me in directions I may have in the past resisted. I really don’t know where all this is going to lead me but I am now willing to explore, develop and grow.

I found all the information you offered on healing, realigning the body, nutrition, etc. so fascinating, have you ever thought about doing a course on just that? With the aging population and the health care issues I think it would be not only an interesting course but one that would be very beneficial to so many. I, personally, would love to learn more about what you talked about and plan on purchasing the book, “Body Renewal, the Lost Art of Self Healing” for my Kindle.

Thank you again for a wonderful four days!!

Another:Hola Merri Y Gary, I was thinking about you this Remembrance Day, and I went to check emails and there you are! We had fun at Disney World on Monday and sat beside several Personnes Espaniol. We could understand them however I couldn’t make sentences quickly, but could say one or two word phrases that were understood. We arrived home at 3am yesterday – the airlines were very late in Denver due to a crew incident.

I found myself making up sentences all day yesterday as I was running errands. John knows more vocabulary than I at this point as he has studied Spanish previously. Today I will begin to review the lessons and construct sentences to send to you and the group – as you suggested below. Es en BUENO sugestion!!! I also received the email Merri sent with the 4005 words and started to scroll through those yesterday.

Another:Thank YOU Merri, Gary, Don and Richard for everything you have done to create and bring this wonderful experience to all of us. It takes a well sychronized team of people to put on an effective, change producing seminar! I have given many seminars and enjoyed the experience immensely. The outcome is even better! Estoy une infantil de Super Thinking and Spanish, y es possible aprender en tiempo.

John and I both thank all of you for the wonderful experience – we are working now to clear up things so we can leave for the Galapagos and Ecuador November 25th – December 20th. Nosotros tiene muchos appreciacion! Gracias y Abrazos, Another:Hello Gary, Muchas gracias para la informacion! I had a wonderful time at the Super Learning + Spanish weekend!… excelente!

I was impressed with your depth of knowledge on numerous subjects and your ability to speak about them with exceptional recall. Con mucho apriciar, P.S. Yo estoy enteresado en Espanol #2.

One delegate even explained how after our course they ended up as the accidental translator:Gary, I have sent Merri a couple of messages, and a story of Mike being able to translate yesterday for a Spanish person who couldn’t understand what a man was trying to tell him!

We loved the seminar, and are excited to put the super learning to practice, and especially the great company of like-minded people (especially G & M!) Muchas Gracias! Tiene an excellante dias.

Another was able to write part of his thanks in Spanish.Gary Thanks so much for sending the course and the extra one ( that was an unexpected and delightful surprise!) It was great seeing you and Merri again and we are looking forward to returning to Mt. Dora next year. usted y Meri tengo un fantastico celabracion de la dar gracia y navidad

Comments from another delegate: I wanted you to know that the Spanish course has proven incredibly helpful. Dealing with internet service providers and shopping for appliances, etc., normally would have required me hiring a translator to follow me around. While it may not be pretty or 100% grammatically correct, I am understood. Thank you! Saludos!

Whether your goal is to reduce your cost of living… increase your income… enhance the return on your investments or all, being able to speak Spanish… enhances your opportunity and does the world good.

Lose Weight and Inches With Frequency Modulation

See an example from a Super Thinking + Spanish delegate who lost 55 pounds after taking our course. See how Jim Reed used our Super Thinking + Spanish course to enhance his health and wealth as well as speak Spanish.

The ability to speak Spanish… even if you never leave the US is valuable in this day and age. Spanish opens access to a good labor force and helps you communicate with a useful part of the American population.

Beyond Spanish… knowledge is bliss. Ignorance is dangerous in these times of rapid change. The more knowledge we can absorb, retain and recall… the better our chances of success… higher income… less stress…. better health and more fulfillment.

So it’s little wonder that the attendance at our Super Thinking + Spanish and Quantum Wealth courses have grown dramatically. Our changing world not only reinforces the need to speak Spanish but also requires us to be smarter.

Super Thinking plus Spanish courses are among the few I know that not only share valuable information but help the delegates become smarter so they absorb, retain and recall the education more effectively. The course does this through the power of music… a power we all already have within. Let’s see some examples. Meet Jim Reed.

Jim is a retired airline pilot who moved to Ecuador a year ago and lived in our Casa Blanca condos for a year. He has become an Ecuador resident and is built a house. I interviewed him on one of our trips to Cotacachi.

Like so many others I have spoken with who have attended our Super Thinking + Spanish course… he claims to be much happier… more relaxed and has become healthier, shedding medication and weight.

Jim lost 55 pounds in the last year and, as reported by so many… without trying… without eating less… without any feeling of deprivation.

One fact that many who enjoyed wonderful positive changes when they have attended our Super Thinking course is they learned to use music in a very specific way to reach the quantum states of their intellect.

A March 2009 report by World Science entitled “Language of music may really be universal” says: Na­tive Af­ri­cans who have nev­er lis­tened to the ra­dio be­fore can none­the­less pick up on hap­py, sad, and fear­ful emo­tions in West­ern mu­sic, ac­cord­ing to a new re­port. The re­sult shows that the ex­pres­sion of those three bas­ic emo­tions in mu­sic can be un­iver­sally rec­og­nized, the re­search­ers said.Stud­ies found that both West­ern and Mafia lis­ten­ers, who had nev­er be­fore heard West­ern mu­sic, could rec­og­nize emo­tion­al ex­pres­sions of hap­pi­ness, sad­ness, and fear in the mu­sic more of­ten than would be ex­pected by chance. “These emo­tion­al ex­pres­sions con­veyed by the West­ern mu­sical ex­cerpts can be un­iver­sally rec­og­nized,” the re­search­ers wrote, “si­m­i­lar to the largely un­iver­sal rec­og­ni­tion of hu­man emo­tion­al fa­cial ex­pres­sion and emo­tion­al prosody.” Pros­o­dy refers to the rhythm, stress, and in­tona­t­ion of con­nect­ed speech.

A three minute example of this human connection is the song “Don’t Worry Be Happy” where 10-time Grammy Award winner Bobby McFerrin’s uses audiences to prove the chart-topper. This song is one of the most popular songs of the late 20th century.

A video of this states: Music is just “in there”…hard wired… in our being and just needs tapping into.

This is why Super Thinking works… the course goes beyond teaching and taps into wisdom and intelligence that is already WITHIN!

As the speed of change increases… so to does our need for knowledge and the ability absorb, retain, recall and use what we learn in effective ways.

Here are more raves from delegates of this course:

Gary & Merri, Mike and I have so enjoyed attending your seminars. I look at is as a place to gain “tools for life” as well as receiving a plethera of information on the topics at hand.

(So far we attended Spanish and investing.) I get equally as much value out of the tools, and mindset in viewing the information that can be applied to life in general as well as the topic at hand. So thanks for enjoying what you do… it definitely shows up in real world application.

At each seminar we meet many interesting and unique folk – I think the audience you draw can think out of the box at least a little bit! So again thanks for gathering such a wonderful array of resources for us.

Another emailed:Dear Gary and Merrie, We so enjoyed the language class last weekend at Mt Dora!

Carolyn came back with your simple, common sense approach and the new tools to start speaking.

Most remarkable is that she feels comfortable putting together sentences and ‘communicating.’ Somehow many of us seem to get caught in the trap of thinking we have to say it ‘right,’ and so we don’t even try. It is interesting that we do not see ourselves ‘creating’ communication in our native tongue; each saying it a little different than the other, and yet still all getting the ‘communication’ across the bridge in our own manner.

We delighted to know you both better, and greatly admire your passion for life and generosity sharing what you have learned.

We are planning to attend the next business seminar you offer. Carolyn is talking about returning for the Fall Spanish Super Thinking class with a girlfriend.

We are excited by the many new challenges we have found through your offerings.

Another a dentist said:I was so delighted with my experience at the Spanish training. I felt more confident of ability to pronounce Spanish than I ever was of French or German. Funny… I did not think I remembered any French or German but when I cannot remember the Spanish words the German and French popped up. Practicing my pronunciation made my trip home go faster. I never enjoyed pronouncing either of the other two, but this was fun. It is hard to fall asleep at the wheel when you are moving your mouth to speak Spanish. It does work your mouth in a different way. I realized that you have to say each syllable slowly and correctly(until you get it perfectly) and when you do it is impressive.

It was amazing to see us all writing such advanced sentences after a few days and so much more enjoyable than having to go through the alphabet to build the words to build the sentences.

Another Wrote: Dear Gary, I intended to give it a few days before I wrote to you about my experience in the Spanish + SuperThinking Course. However, I had such dramatic results today, in the physical rather than the cognitive realm, that I had to share this immediately.

I started my day with Baroque music. Before I began my Spanish lesson, I went through the Mayan Waves Brain Refresher (Brain Sync). I also played an alpha wave composition while I completed a lesson in the morning. I repeated the process this afternoon. Before my high intensity interval training (HIIT) workout in the evening, I put on a gamma brain wave video from you tube faster reading gamma waves help with exercise. I preformed the “Halo Of Sweat” workout from an online fitness site. Around the world, people complete the workout and posts their scores, striving to meet or beat the personal trainer. Frankly, my reps have rarely come close to the reps of the woman featured in the video nor have I ever beat her. Until today.

Not only did I come close to her performance, I surpassed her quite significantly with several exercises. I performed my best in the last exercise, Abs Burn Out. Her scores were 38, 34 and 33 and mine were 60, 40 and 47!

I believe several factors allowed me to achieve this acceleration in athletic ability today:

1. My left and right hemispheres are now harmonizing. 2. The meditation and relaxed concentration techniques I learned are coming more easily to me and effective. 3. My focus and concentration are greatly enhanced.

I am a Pilates professional so to have my exercise regimen improve so swiftly is remarkable. Not only am I now able speak Spanish but I am experiencing optimal health as well. I am deeply grateful to you and Merri for your SuperLearning instruction. Be well,

A major theme in our messages is that we’ll be facing the loss of currency purchasing power. Opportunities created by this problem lay in equities, real estate, commodities and your own small business. Your own business involved in real estate and commodities could make extra sense.

Our orange groves are like producers of green gold… that fight inflation. See below an idea that ties into Ecuador imports.

This is a great time to bring up this product because it was at Christmas eleven or twelve years ago that I first wrote about Ted’s Stuff.

Ted Tidwell has been a friend and reader for decades and he gave me a bottle of this organic, biodegradable degreaser called “1st enviro safety organic colloidal degreaser.” (This is why I call it Ted’s Stuff!)

I had been trimming a large outdoor live tree with lights and my hands were covered with pitch. I thought, “Let’s try Ted’s Stuff.” The pitch melted away and I was hooked!

We started using Ted’s Stuff on everything because though it is totally organic and readily biodegradable, it is a potent germ killer.

I have a copy of a lab report from Davis Analytical Laboratories in Sarasota, Florida which shows that two to three drops of Ted’s stuff has the same effect as one drop of clorox. We began using it wash our dishes, floors, windows, to remove spots and all our cleaning chores.

Then we began to discover other uses for Ted’s stuff. For example it degreases ants and they leave. Then when we discovered the Wooly Adelgid Blight on the hemlocks at our North Carolina farm… we brought out an arborist and tested it on these terrible aphids that are killing hemlocks up and down the US East Coast.

He was amazed, incorporated Ted’s Stuff into his business and has since treated thousands of hemlocks for this disease with Ted’s Stuff. Ours and others are looking very good including one giant beautiful hemlock which was heavily infected when we bought the farm 12 years ago….now this old giant is green again!

So Ted’s Stuff creates an import opportunity in Ecuador or elsewhere.

Over the years, Ted has discovered that this degreaser and some derivative formulas make excellent bio washes, fertilizers and even pesticides (though they cannot be sold as such in some countries).

These solutions are certified free of all carcinogens.

One of the world’s largest retailers did an intensive study of all “green” and “environmental” cleaning products and discovered that these cleaners of Ted’s are the only truly green ones.

Many other “safe” cleaning products contain ethylene oxide and dioxane, both known to cause cancer.

Here is where the opportunity comes in. The product can help farmers in many countries. Mexico is one good example. Ted sent me this note about his experiences in Mexico.

The first small test sample of the cleaner was formulated for farming and sent to Mexico in June 2007.

A PhD Chemist from Poly Tech Institute tested it on five acres of sweet corn in Guanajuato. It was past the normal planting season but he planted anyway. The stalks grew to eight feet tall and the ears were much larger than normal. The stalks were so robust and healthy, that after the harvest, he sold the stalks for cow feed. Here is the corn.

tall and with these long ears.

Corn is the biggest crop in Mexico. The average Mexican corn farmer earns about $100 per acre. Dr. Rico’s five acres brought him approximate $2,000 or $400 per acre.

In Nuevo Italia, another farmer treated approximately 1,000 mango trees. He advised that his increased averaged 300 additional mangos per tree and earned an extra $60,000 income.

Antonio Gutierrez, La Ruana, owned 70 acres of diseased limes. In 2007, his total income was only $18,000. He tested this BioWash on several rows and had positive results.

Here is Antonio in front of a tree that had been diseased but recovered after BioWashing.

In 2008, Antonio BioWashed his entire 70 acres. By February, which was mid-season his income had already soared to over $100,000.

Ted Tidwell and Antonio.

His quality had increase so significantly that he received six pesos per kilo instead of the normal four pesos per kilo. His yield has increased dramatically. Instead of the usual 2 to four limes he had clusters of eleven limes.

Antonio was so pleased with his lime results, he BioWashed 25 acres of papayas. Instead of tall, spindly Florida style papaya trees with only a dozen small papayas, his trees produced 60 to 100 giant papayas.

In Antonio’s area, the papaya season normally runs from January to May or June. In November, 2008, Antonio’s friend, Pedro, visited our plant. Pedro advised that Antonio was still harvesting and selling papayas in November. He ships them to Los Angeles labeled “Pesticide Free.” Antonio’s income from 25 BioWashed acres is estimated around $1,000,000.

Antonio hired 20 additional men to help harvest his produce, thus reducing the need for those men to look in the U.S. for employment.

In farmlands southwest of Guadalajara, tomato growers had unsuccessfully attempted to protect their crops from insects by growing them inside greenhouses. They achieved success with BioWash.

Farmers who BioWash perennials such as squash and tomatoes extend their productive season. Dr. Rico’s brother grows backyard tomatoes. His vines continued producing tomatoes for 12 weeks rather than the usual six weeks. He discovered that BioWashed tomatoes remain edible up to six weeks after harvesting.

My most current idea is to test Ted’s Stuff on our citrus. Texas A & M University recently tested Ted’s Stuff as a possible solution to the Citrus Greening problem. Bio-Green Clean proved more effective than the highly toxic Bayer chemicals.

The Texas A&M results are being prepared for submittal to the EPA. The EPA will require additional testing.

Ted is looking for citrus growers who would like to test Bio-Green Clean in their groves and I’ll be looking at this for sure because as mentioned above our groves here in Florida fight inflation.

The groves lead down to the lake and…

we have some lemons as well…

They are big ones but I would like to try to make them bigger, juicer, healthier at a lower cost.

Yesterday’s message Ecuador Imports looked at Jatropha or Camelina as crops that produce drop-in replacement biofuels and gave excerpts from articles about how KLM and Air New Zeland are testing these fuels now. One of the articles said: “This (drop in biofuels) is technically feasible. We have demonstrated that it is possible,” Peter Hartman, KLM’s president and CEO, said in a statement today. “Government, industry and society at large must now join forces to ensure that we quickly gain access to a continuous supply of biofuel.”

UOP says its renewable jet fuel can be used as a drop-in replacement requiring no changes to the aircraft technology when used up to a 50 percent blend. The fuel meets critical flight specifications, including freeze and flash points.

Jennifer Holmgren, vice president and general manager of UOP’s renewable energy and chemicals business, said data from the KLM test flight would be incorporated into a report by a coalition of airlines, aircraft manufacturers and related companies to certify renewable jet fuel for use in commercial flights.

The coalition should submit its report to the international standards board that certifies fuels and chemicals within the next few weeks, Holmgren said. Full certification could be granted about next year.

Here is the idea. Combine three thoughts. Ted’s Stuff… nonfood biofuel and low cost Ecuadorian agricultural land… less restricted by numerous federal regulations…with rich soil, 365 days a year of direct sun and low cost labor. This is a new opportunity that could produce excellent profits.

Ted Tidwell, the owner of the company that produces Ted’s Stuff is kindly providing me with a free supply to test such ideas and I’ll keep you informed.

If this idea appeals to you, contact Ted Tidwell at tedtid7@yahoo.com

Even better, meet with me and Ted at our groves this February. Ted will speak about importing Ted’s Stuff to Ecuador… or anywhere and his experiences. He will outline its many uses at our February 11-14 course in Mt. Dora, Florida.

Until then Merri and I send our best wishes to you for happy… peaceful…. low stress holidays. We’ll be here at this site sharing ideas with you every day including Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Gary

Join us on Ecuador’s coast this winter. Attend our seminars and tours in Florida and Ecuador. See the best Ecuador property for you. Find the best real estate offers. Know more of Ecuador.To help you experience a bigger adventure in this wonderful nation, to broaden your horizons, to expand your awareness of all Ecuador offers, we are providing deep discounts in 2010 for those who sign up for multiple tours.

We just added four South coast Ecuador tours that can help you gainextra savings with a multi tour pack.

Three Pack… 3 seminar courses & tours $1399 Couple $1,899 Save $98 single or $348 on a couple or more

Four Pack… 4 seminar courses & tours $1,699 Couple $2,299 Save $98 single or $697 on a couple or more

Five Pack… 5 seminar courses & tours $1,999 Couple $2,699 Save $496 single or $1,046 on a couple or more

Six Pack… 6 seminars courses & tours $2,199 Couple $3,099 Save $795 single or $1,395 on a couple or more

These four new south coast tours and our six pack tour price create a bit of a crisis here.

As you can see above a six pack costs $3,099. This is already a really low price for a tour that last up to 21 days (under $150 a day).

But as you will see below, our International Club membership which allows you and a guest to attend up to 56 courses and tours in 2010 (fees would be $40,947 for all these courses individually) is only $2,999.

Which would you choose… 6 courses and tours for $3,099 or those same 6 courses and tours plus 50 more for $2,999?

“Duh,” I said when this was pointed out to me.

So our only solution is to raise the International Club membership to $3,500… still a terrific deal… but $501 more than before.

Save $37,457…plus $501. I will not raise the International club fee until January 2010. Enroll in the International Club now at the original fee of $2,999.

International Club 2010

Attend our 56 investment, business, Spanish, real estate and export, courses and tours in 2010 with one small enrollment fee.

You may well wonder why I would make such an offer and ask why the cost is so low? Let me answer this question frankly and from the heart.

First, it helps us do a better job for you. We feel greatly enriched when we can really help our clients improve their lives. We have learned through years of experience the best way to do this is to meet with you regularly. We can best help you learn how to improve your health and wealth through continual expansion of knowledge.

Second, we gain enormous fulfillment from the many friendships we form through the years. Our friends have enriched our lives tremendously. Let me explain this in more detail.

As a member, you will be part of our international family that meets intensively over the next year to examine ways we can make our lives better. Our goal is beyond just having money. Our goal is to have quantum wealth… good health… wealth and fulfillment through service.

Though I give all course delegates my very best, I cannot help but to do a better job for those who come again and again. As we meet often; your particular wants, needs and desires become clear, and it is easier for me to point you in the right direction.

Another phenomenon is that repeat delegates help each other! They get to know one another, help each other learn, share their insights, make contacts and gain more wealth.

Out associates in Ecuador, are experienced business people who live or work and conduct our real estate and export courses. They can also act as your local backup for the business.

Lifestyle for Two. There is more! I have learned at my courses that many repeat delegates were couples.

We want couples! As a member of the program, you are entitled to bring another person to every single course or tour. The cost for that extra person will be ZERO! You can bring whomever you wish. Bring your spouse, a friend, son or daughter, partner, accountant, adviser. You can bring the same person each time or a different person, whomever you choose to accompany you. (Accommodations and air fares relating to the courses are not included for members, delegates or their guests.)

Won’t you join us in this exciting club and share Merri’s and my lifestyle for the next year? We look forward to seeing you at as many courses as possible and sharing this wonderful world of abundance and well being with you!

This is a small business opportunity, a 21.39 acre estate with an executive golf course, pitching and putting, 6 greens on a 5 acre area. It has six cabins plus a two bedroom, one bathroom house.

This property was one the market at one time at a price that was too high… $1.6 million dollars.

Now the owner has adjusted it down to a realistic price $860,000 in his offer below… but I believe he will take less as he offered us a commission which we explained we do not take. Use this fact… that you are coming to him without a brokerage cost… if you get into a negotiation.

The lake in question is Laguna Yaguarcocha, just five minutes north of the city of Ibarra and a little more than half hour drive along main highways north from Cotacachi.

There is a ridge which runs between the lake and the city of Ibarra and from a local lookout point you get the view of the lake above and also the city below.

The property is called Rancho Totoral.

Here’s a picture from just last Sunday of our Imbabura real estate group eating lunch on the newly constructed patio. By the way, Eduardo the owner, tells me the architect designed roof over the patio cost just $8,000 to put up last summer.

Last Sunday, just as all our delegates were finishing lunch I strolled over to Eduardo and asked if he wanted to present his project. He has about 22 acres in total and had been thinking of building some townhouses with a local constructor. To my complete surprise he said, “..well actually me and Patricia (his wife) have decided to sell the whole property”.

Suddenly I found myself with unexpected news to convey to the group. As we strolled out on to the grounds, one delegate, a successful internet company owner, said “let me guess – $1.8 million” and I said close ” but the asking price is $1.6 million”.

Of course, not all of us have that kind of money but if that price sounds a little high, bare in mind that just bare land around this desirable lake is selling at $10 per square meter and Eduardo’s price is only for the land and buildings – he’s asking $18 per square meter for thousands of square meters of construction and a 9 hole functioning golf course with the business thrown in. Here’s a shot of one of the fairways below with the lake and mountains in the background.

The altitude here is just under 7,000 feet and as such the climate is warm with only the slightest hint of an early morning chill. Here is the 44 seat restaurant below and the building it’s inside. (The patio can seat a further 100 people).

This area has a perfect climate around the lake and not surprisingly the lake is a weekend trip destination not just for Ibarra’s inhabitants but also folks from Quito and even further away. Here’s a couple of early morning shots of the lake as I arrived yesterday with the early morning mist just about burned off.

Laguna Yaguarcocha is also the site for Formula 3 races around a fast circuit and previously the races were run on the road that runs clean around the lake. Paragliding is a popular early morning sport, launch yourself of a nearby hill and glide serenely over the lake just as this guy was doing yesterday morning. Snow capped Cotacachi volcano was easily visible through the trees in the distance this clear morning.

Here are some shots of the road outside Rancho Totoral and also the entrance to the property and the driveway down to the restaurant and house, one think I like about this property is the mature gardens and tremendous variety of plants and trees.

Patricia and her daughter in-law relaxing outside the house

The golf course itself is the only one in the country north of Quito. You can go round and round the course all day long for $25. It’s pretty much a pitch and put course although I can assure you that wouldn’t be the case for me! Mind you if I owned this property I’d be out walking this property every morning just as I did with Eduardo yesterday morning.

Irrigation.

The bar and kitchen.

More cabin shots.

Lake Yahuarcocha.

Here are a couple of shots of the course.

There is wonderful club house.

Lush Gardens

And some charming guest cottages on the first tee. We’ll visit them again next course. Hope you’ll join us there.

There is a race track that wraps around Yaguarcocha Lake.

One wonderful thing about owning Ecuador real estate is that there is just about everything in this area from hot springs, to glorious mountains to great fishing to wild cloud forest preserves to golf to Formula 3 car racing.

Several delegates recently went to the races at lake Yaguarcocha. You can see some shots of the race below.

Start of the Ecuador real estate races at Yaguarcoacha

French participate in Ecuador real estate races at Yaguarcoacha

Winner at Ecuador real estate races at Yaguarcoacha

Last April, 2006 it was announced that Latin America motor sport took a big step forward by introducing the PanAm GP Series races. This is a brand new racing series that makes a significant impact on racing in Central and South America.

This series includes races in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama and the United States at Homestead in Miami. There is extensive TV coverage on the Fox network.

Although Merri and I are not fans, for those that like this type of sport there are many kinds of races from Formula 3 to motor bikes to souped up go carts here that add one more business dimension to this land.

Whether you want real estate in America, Ecuador or anywhere in the world, look for distortions. They offer value that can improve your lifestyle and increase your wealth.

The US and Ecuador property market offers a rare opportunity to make money in this multi currency era. Here is an excerpt from a recent multi currency update.

Two economic forces have come together to create extra special profits.

I know because the same combination occurred in London during the late 1970s and allowed me to increase an investment eleven times in two years by buying property then.

Earlier in 1970 I had lived in London, England for a year, then moved to Hong Kong. During that time I also maintained a home outside of San Francisco, California.

This was a time of great inflation. My homes in California and in Hong Kong appreciated greatly. In the mid 1970s, when I moved from Hong Kong back to London, I noticed that London real estate was priced about the same as it had been in 1970. This puzzled me. Why had London property prices remained flat despite inflation?

On investigation, I learned that there had been a huge real estate crash in 1970 which continued to dampen real estate prices six years later despite the rampant global inflation. I felt this was a great distortion as European property prices had risen, but London prices had not. Yet London offered the best utility as the center of the English speaking world. This, to my way of thinking, created a huge distortion.

It’s late 1976. Britain faced a sterling crisis. In less than two years the pound has fallen from $2.40 to $1.60. Investors had no faith in the British economy, or the government that ran it. The government’s budget was a mess. Investors were ditching the pound.

The plummeting pound pushed the economy to breaking point. Prime Minister Callaghan, in desperation borrowed as much as possible, £2.3 billion from the IMF.

At that time, the British pound collapsed to its lowest level ever (a pound per dollar for a short time) so the distortion widened. This meant in US dollar terms London property had dropped almost 50% while property in other major cities of the western world had increased in price by three or four times.

The house I bought was right next door and very similar to this house in Bedford Park, London W4.

This house in West London was 34,000 pounds, 9,000 pounds down (then $9,000). I took a mortgage for 25,000 pounds ($25,000). I lived in the house and three years later the pound had recovered to 2.2 dollars per pound plus London real estate had caught up with property in other major western centers. I sold the house for 115,000 pounds or $253,000 a profit of $244,000 on a $9,000 investment.

Now it’s the US dollar that is very low.

You will have seen articles something like the the September 7, 2009 Bloomberg article “Weak Dollar? Currency, at 10-Year Low, May Fall More” by Bo Nielsen.

An excerpt says: Anyone who says the dollar is weak after it fetched a record-low $1.3681 against the euro and the fewest pence against the pound in 25 years is expressing a euphemism.

The currency may decline at least another 10 percent by the end of 2008, say Jay Bryson, an economist at Wachovia Corp., and Kenneth Rogoff, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. The dollar has only fallen 3.4 percent in the past two years to a 10-year low, according to a Federal Reserve index that weighs trade with 38 countries including China, Mexico, Canada and countries in Europe. It tumbled 30 percent in the three years ended 1988.

“Dollar weakness will be broad-based and could last for years,” said Bryson, a global economist at Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia who previously analyzed currencies at the Federal Reserve.

Investors are dumping dollars, lured by higher returns elsewhere. The U.S. will grow more slowly than Europe for the first time since 2001 and Japan for the first time in 16 years, the IMF forecasts. The difference in yield between 10-year German bonds and Treasuries has shrunk to the smallest since 2004.

Those who read this site regularly or subscribe to our multi currency course know that I reported my personal portfolio and recommended getting out of the US dollar in February 2009.See that recommendation here.

So Merri and I began looking and in our research found that there appears to be a hole in the market for Central Florida property selling in the million to $750,000 range. There seems to be no buyers at all. We have been watching prices tumble hundreds of thousands.

We are viewing one property next week that started at $800K+. It just dropped $100,000 last week from $395,000 and is now down to $295,000.

This is about a 25% drop in that house’s price in six months. That’s pretty good!

Now look at what this means in depreciated dollar terms.

Here is a chart of the euro to US dollar from yahoo.finance.com from February 2009 to September 10, 2009 when this was written.

In February a US dollar bought .80 euro so that house at $395,ooo cost 319,200 euro. Now a US dollar buys about .68 euro so this house at $295,000 costs about 200,000 euro.

That is a drop in that house price of 37% in six months in terms of euro. That’s even better!

Here is the magic in this hidden, built-in profit. For most of the market, the profit is hidden. Most investors are not comparing currencies and real estate prices. Yet these distortions will filter through. Eventually European investors…. or those like me who are holding currencies other than dollars will see this distortion and cash in.

I, and now you, just have an advantage because we are always looking at both markets… currency and real estate.

Ecuador Real Estate Cheaper as Well

This also creates better value on Ecuador real estate. Take for example one penthouse property I am selling at $139,000.

This is a perfect property for those who want peace… quiet…and instant access to miles of empty, warm Pacific beach.

This two room, top floor penthouse is at Palmazul and includes use of the the swimming pool, tennis courts… and spa. You can dine here, one floor below.

The units are fully equipped… kitchen…

with full size fridge.

Living room…

with a view…

leading…

to large private balconies…

with these views…

and sunsets to kill for.

Long walks on the beach… you can amble at low tide for ten miles and not see a soul.

Luxury bathrooms with bathtub…

and a king size bed with view and caressed by the ocean breeze.

This unit would have cost 111,000 euro in February. Now the price has dropped to 94,500 euro… just from the dollar’s fall.

The US and Ecuador property markets offers a rare opportunity to make extra profit now because of hidden added value from the US dollar’s fall. History suggests that real estate is a real asset so its price rises as the currency its counted in falls.

These corrections take time because most property owners do not calculate their property in multi currency terms. Those of us who watch this can gain extra profit now.

Our emailed course “Tangled Webs We Weave – How to Have Your Own Web Based Business” is a continuing educational program. You receive the first 28 lessons when you enroll and a new lesson every week or two.

This course teaches how to create a web based business and is developed from the ongoing experiences that we have from our successful and profitable internet business.

This course is well worth the enrollment fee of $299… but currently you also receive two additional courses FREE.

The other two courses are #1: International Business Made EZ, and #2: Self Fulfilled – How to be a Self Publisher.

These two courses have sold for $398 and thousands have paid this price. We add them to your course at no added cost as I believe they will help you develop a better business in these crucial times.

Even Better Get All three Courses Free

To make this offer even more compelling, I am giving everyone who enrolls in our North Carolina or Ecuador International Business & Investing seminar in October or November all three courses, “Tangled Web… How to Have an Internet Business Course,” “Self Fulfilled- How to be a Self Publisher” and “International Business Made EZ” free.

Join us with Jyske Bank and my webmaster David Cross in West Jefferson North Carolina. Learn more about global investing, how to have an international business at the seminar.

Many recent messages have looked at living, business and investing in chaos during times of turmoil and change.

Ecuador at times may seem chaotic.

Chaos is caused by transition from one wave of productive technology to another.

Investors and businesses who understand this have an enormous advantage because they know to look for the next wave.

In a moment, we’ll look at the potential for chaos in Ecuador.

First, let’s look at some positive chaos that could ruin some basic utilities but also create millions (maybe billions) for some businesses and investors.

The industrial revolution has been a time of continual chaos. There was a time of turmoil when mankind shifted from steam technology to the internal combustion engine. Investors who had been big in railroads (but were smart) shifted to investing in automobiles and trucking and bus lines.

Then chaos came again when the jet engine made the airplane a more effective form of transportation than long distance. Bus travel and smart investors shifted from Greyhound into airline shares.

In the information era; the PC, Internet (and Microsoft) became the major carrier of mankind and investors who saw this potential once again jumped ahead of the pack.

Where do we go next?

One new wave of technology may come in a product we all take for granted…. creating what I would call the independence era. Let’s just look at the break through.

A forward looking reader sent me the Utah Daily Herald article “New battery could change world, one house at a time” by Randy Wright.

Here is an excerpt: On a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago. — a new generation of deep-storage battery that’s small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.

It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this time the mainframe is America’s antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to personal power stations in millions of individual homes.

The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices.

The convergence of these two key technologies — solar power and deep-storage batteries — has profound implications for oil-strapped America.

With small-scale electrical generation taking place at millions of individual homes — as opposed to today’s large-scale power generation from a handful of giant power plants — there would be less worry about what’s called “point failure” on the grid. That’s when a single component gets knocked out and shuts off power to a whole region. California-style rolling blackouts would be history.

The threat of terrorism has heightened the worry. But wide distribution of batteries in homes would virtually eliminate it.

Inside Ceramatec’s wonder battery is a chunk of solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane. The membrane conducts ions — electrically charged particles — back and forth to generate a current. The company calculates that the battery will cram 20 to 40 kilowatt hours of energy into a package about the size of a refrigerator, and operate below 90 degrees C.

This may not startle you, but it should. It’s amazing. The most energy-dense batteries available today are huge bottles of super-hot molten sodium, swirling around at 600 degrees or so. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity but it’s both toxic and corrosive. You wouldn’t want your kids around one of these.

The essence of Ceramatec’s breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.

Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery’s life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours — how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That’s a pretty exciting place to live.

And then you recharge. With a projected 3,650 discharge/recharge cycles — one per day for a decade — you leave the next-best battery in the dust. Deep-cycling lead/acid batteries like the ones used in RVs are only good for a few hundred cycles, so they’re kaput in a year or so.

How do you recharge? By tapping your solar panels or windmills. It’s just like plugging in your cell phone or iPod, only you plug in your house.

A small three-bedroom home in Provo might average, say, 18 kWh of electric consumption per day in the summer — that’s 1,000 watts for 18 hours. A much larger home, say five bedrooms in the Grandview area, might average 80 kWh, according to Provo Power. Either way, a supplement of 20 to 40 kWh per day is substantial. If you could produce that much power in a day — for example through solar cells on the roof — your power bills would plummet.

“Batteries and PV are about to merge,” said MIT’s Nocera, using the shorthand for “photovoltaics” or solar power. “First Solar is now saying that it takes $1 a peak watt to manufacture, and another 80 cents for installation. So they’re saying that you can get PV for under $2 a watt. That’s a reduction of cost by a factor of four. Only a few years ago, it was $8. If CoorsTek and Ceramatec come up with a good battery, the market will develop quickly.”

The long-term impact of home electric generation for a power company’s business model could be huge. After all, you can’t stay in business if nobody’s paying for power. Exactly how that will play out remains to be seen.

This technology is new to me… but seems breathtaking and loaded with opportunity. Please send any thoughts, ideas, information or opinions you have.

Before you invest though, remember the golden rules of investing.

1. Money isn’t everything 2. Work only with people you like 3. Buy businesses, not stocks 4. Invest only in what you understand 5. Don’t over diversify 6. Keep looking for new opportunities 7. Buy businesses you plan to keep for life 8. Look for businesses that are available at a good price 9. Do what you like

Potential Ecuador Chaos

The people of Ecuador are friendly and happy.

There is some potential for change in Ecuador that could benefit those moving and investing there.

First, let’s look at the cause of the turmoil. A recent message entitled Investing Internationally shared news about the Ecuadorian government’s plan to take back a number of radio and TV frequencies stations. We promised to stay tuned to what happens and share observations and opinions from trusted sources in Ecuador about this.

Since that time, the Western press has published even more bad sounding news.

A recent AP article entitled “Ecuador Wants Citizen Committees To Defend Gov’t” said: QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador wants to create local citizen committees that would defend the government and its “revolution” — sparking criticism that the president aims to control opponents in a system reminiscent of Cuba or Venezuela.

Citizen Participation Minister Doris Soliz told Ecuador TV on Thursday that local citizen groups are needed to defend against coups like the one that recently deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, or against outside agitators, noting U.S. military plans to use Colombian bases.

Other articles covered lots of rhetoric from Venezuela’s President about winds of war in the area (Chavez’s commenting on the announcement that the US would place military in Colombia).

Since the daily press distort, dramatize and magnify the negative; here are more comments from Ecuadorian business people with this comments.

Dear Gary: Sorry for the delay in my reply. Correa is an unpredictable president. On one hand he tries to emulate everything Chavez has done in Venezuela. It is clear that Chavez gave him millions to finance his political campaigns and now he is obligated to do whatever Chavez wants.

On the other hand, he knows how far he can push the people of Ecuador. If he is not careful, he can end up like Zelaya in Honduras. I see strong confrontations coming if he tries to close radio and TV stations like Chavez did.

As you say in your reports. We all need to be diversified in order to avoid problems in one place and not have anywhere to go in thing go bad. I do believe the Ecuadorians are not as passive as the Venezuelans, and if Correa pushes too far he will find out. Let’s wait and see.

I agree with this reader. Ecuadorians are an independent people, and I have watched them (peacefully) oust a number of Presidents who abused their power.

Here is another opinion from one of my many sources.

Gary, My comments are just some personal opinions and for that reason I prefer that I not receive any credit. There is some noise going around that Correa wants to have “block leaders” who will report back to the government of any dissent. You can imagine what this means. Stifling dissent. It is a time to be careful and hope the Ecuadorian military remains faithful to the people of Ecuador. While there are so many needs and opportunities in Ecuador to be attended to, one could ask why does the president feel it is necessary to be out speaking of “winds of war blowing” against Colombia? Anyway, it all comes with the territory of being in the Latin governmental world I suspect. If the leaders were just humble people looking to improve the lot of their people instead of being megalomaniacs hell bent on being Castro or Hitler, life would be easier for all.

Here are children in a parade in Cotacachi.

Readers should note that it was not Correa, Ecuador’s president who made the comment about Winds of War but Chavez of Venezuela. A lot of press makes it sound like Correa is much more closely aligned with Chavez than I believe he is. Good or bad, I do believe that Correa is his own man and is pretty independent.

Here is another comment by an Ecuadorian with a great political and historical background.

Thanks for asking. Correa. He is all right. His big problem is being too young. There is a proverb in Spanish “mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo”. (The devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s the devil). That is Correa’s problem. He is not old enough. Velasco Ibarra who was president five times, was very much like Correa, when he was young. When he grew older he became much more sedated.

Again I agree with this. Everything I have seen has led me to feel that Correa has many good intentions and is trying to correct many wrongs and has a big job. In his youth he may be too ambitious and impatient. Time, inertia and politics should correct a lot of that!

Here are more comments.

He usually talks too much. He talks every Saturday for 3 or 4 hours continuously. It is not highly recommendable to quote him or mention his speech. Sometimes he just changes his mind. Or does not follow what he mentioned in the previous weekend.

That could describe more than one politician!

I have met the President a couple of times. He actually stopped next to us on the street at 9pm at night and met our son and was very sincere and asked what we thought about how things were here in Ecuador. He is very headstrong, but I think that he is a very intelligent guy and he knows how to negociate and what it is going to take for Ecuador to become a stable economy and that is with foreign investment and tourism.

Again this is the way I see it as well.

This is from a Quito businessman:

Dear Gary: Many thanks for sharing the concerns some of your readers have about President Correa. I get some emails on the subject too. I should start by saying that I am no fan of President Correa, far from it. I don’t particularly like his discourse as if from the union trenches of the 60s and 70s.

Some of his economic policies seem to go counter current and his relative closeness with Chavez is a blemish.

Nonetheless, there are merits too, amongst which is great effort in improving education and health care. Also, in attempting to fix some wrongs and distortions we’ve had on several fronts.

In spite of Correa’s antics, Ecuador continues to offer, and perhaps more so than ever, rather remarkable opportunities for real estate investors, visitors and expats.

Let me explain:

The new, fresh-out-of-the-oven, Ecuadorian Constitution states, following with the tradition of the previous one, that foreigners have exactly the same rights as Ecuadorians under the law.

Furthermore, private property is protected under the law as one of the main pillars of our economy. Confiscation is prohibited and eminent domain (expropriation) situations are extremely rare, much less so than what they would be in Miami, London or Toronto for that matter.

While some people may believe that Correa is not particularly pro foreign investment, the reality is that Ecuador, just as the next country, needs investment to prosper and, hence, the President is very welcoming of it, he just demands responsible practices.

While the pitfalls of politics-as-usual and nationalistic grandstanding in Ecuador, can and does preclude some major investments from coming in (picture hydroelectric, oil exploration, etc), for most of us, of your readers Gary, this should not be a problem.

Regarding the Government’s stance towards foreigners coming to Ecuador and investing here, something quite nice and reassuring happened to me recently, which is telling about how reality differs from perception.

Here’s the story:

While working in the concept for a coastal development with international capitals and geared mostly towards foreigners, we realized that better government planning and zoning was needed in the area if we were to spread our wings the fullest.

I decided to call the Production Ministry, which is a high level coordination entity on top of many other ministries in Ecuador to see if they could perhaps give us some light as to getting some better zoning for the area.

I was immediately transferred to the head authority in charge of foreign investments in Ecuador and in a few hours was meeting with him along with other officers from the ministry he had called in. They were not only incredibly welcoming of our ideas and concepts but asked us to create with them a road map not only for planning and zoning, but for infrastructure, education of the local community, and much more.

They have let me know that they are ready to lend a hand as needed and that when the time comes, once we have things down on a plan we can meet with the secretary of the ministry and even President Correa for further vision.

What is the reason for this incredible support? Well, that they are really pro investments and that when you want to do the right thing, doors become open.

On the subject of visas, something that concerns many foreigners, I can say that the President has prompted a very open regime for foreigners to come to Ecuador. However, some changes in the procedures are driving some of us nuts. We just have to adapt.

In any case, you can expect to get a resident visa in Ecuador in 3 to 6 weeks in most cases. The new director of Migration is quite a gentleman and very open and understanding. It’s a pleasure to work with him.

With regards to some radios being closed, this is something the President declared as a possibility on grounds that some radio frequencies had been granted with irregularities according to an audit. While the audit may be correct, President Correa does have a bitter quarrel with the press and his fixation with it is over the top now.

Getting back to real estate; I’d like to add that foreigners have been investing and buying real estate in Ecuador for some time, and that this is a trend that is seemingly quite on the rise.

I am seeing the start of a major wave here.

Ecuador has excellent real estate opportunities and values and the current international crisis where former “safe havens” have been shattered is making this truth about Ecuadorian real estate all the more compelling.

Investors into Ecuadorian real estate ought to buy soundly into capital preservation and important appreciation potential.

As final thoughts, given the current financial problems the world is seeing, the violence in Mexico fending off tourists and investors… the bursting of the real estate bubbles throughout, the baby-boomers coming of age with individuals lusting for active living with quality of life to boot, Ecuador is starting to make some tremendous sense to many.

Our President may be a bit of a showman (to put it somehow), granted; and we as a nation have a ways to go into maturity; we are rough around the edges, but we may have among the warmest, most welcoming people on earth, and no development can buy that.

We have good infrastructure and low cost of living. Those who see beyond the perception should be able to get in early on the trend, ride this major wave and make the best out of it.

These are good points… especially this one… the government may be talking one way or the other… but look at how it is acting. In this case it appears that the government is pro tourism… pro investment and is welcoming residents from abroad.

Here is one final comment.

Gary, I don’t get involved in my host country’s internal politics. I am however a strong believer in the Open Society and the value of ideas meeting arguments, so I guess I would prefer more media outlets to fewer. By the by, Ecuadorians I know say this is the first time they feel they cannot express freely what they feel about their government, for fear of repression.

These are two key points also. I do not getinvolved in politics anywhere. My feeling is that time is better spent adapting to whatever the politicians do rather than joining into the political fray. Reality is that if you do business fair and well, whatever the political system is you’ll be welcome. The second point is about freedom of speech.

I recall feeling fear like this recently when talking to my son over the phone. I was about to make a joke about a certain president and decided not to thinking… I had better not joke about this. The problem was I was in the US… not Ecuador.

The great technology that has created such great access to information has destroyed our privacy as well…everywhere.

My new real estate acquisitions are in Ecuador . Recent messages have looked at the importance of seeing reality. People write often asking if it‘s safe in Ecuador. I was thinking of the reality of this as Merri and I concluded a long Ecuador morning walk. The birds were singing, roosters crowing in the distance and we saw two very young children, a girl of maybe six or seven and her little brother maybe four or five walking alone through the village on their way to school. This is so typical in Ecuador.

I wondered how many children of that age in North America are allowed to walk alone through town as they are in Ecuador.

More Cotacachi children in a parade.

You see young girls like this (maybe eleven or twelve) walking around night and day. This is not because Ecuadorian parents are careless. It is because there is a great deal of safety in Ecuador .

Here are a few facts I know.

#1: The Ecuador constitution protects landownership of citizens regardless of citizenship. No local government can take land by eminent domain for economic development.

#2: No Ecuador children have been shot in school.

#3: Ecuador schools do not require metal detectors.

#4: No Ecuador police force has used a “no knock” search warrant to break down a door and then shoot an innocent 80+ year old resident 50 times.

#5: We do not worry in Ecuador about being sued if someone spills hot coffee on themselves at our hotel. By the way our coffee is hot here.

#6: Ecuadorian doctors do not have to shut down their practices because of malpractice insurance costs.

#7: Parents in Ecuador are not at risk of having their child diagnosed as having ADD and being forced to give them Ritalin. Read http://www.ritalindeath.com/ if you want to have your heart rendered over the weekend.

There is a deep culture in Ecuador.

Back in early 2007, a potential real estate buyer visited me about buying a $93,000 house in Otavalo. As we enjoyed a “cuppa tea” and visited I could see he loved the house but was really worried about loss of property due to Ecuador’s constitutional reform.

My view was that the reform was unlikely to reduce individual land rights. As we can see above, the opposite took place. the constitution strengthened property protection. Ecuador’s base of wealth has always been individual land ownership.

Then I pointed out to this potential buyer that his real bigger risk was buying a similar three bedroom house in England. A similar house would cost him between $400,000 and a million dollars. The risk of losing $93,000 in value when the overheated English real estate market dips seemed greater to me than the chances of losing $93,000 in Ecuador because a house would taken due to constitutional change.

Prices were way overblown in England. This was exactly what happened. Real estate crashed in England while real estate prices in Ecuador have remained strong.

In the west, the cost of living is so high that many people can barely move!

So where is it safe to live? I think when Merri and I are really realistic, we feel that there are many aspects of safety in Ecuador.

Many of us feel many changes in our homelands that are not good. If you do, don’t despair, the sun always shines somewhere as it did here in Cotacachi, Ecuador. Here’s the sun coming up!

Merri and I always practice diversification…in asset class as well as geographically. We are over weighted in Ecuador so we are voting with our money that the chaos here will create more opportunity than trouble.

A clear mind and healthy body are also a vital assets… plus a second language is a powerful diversification tool.

This is why I am willing to pay you $300 to attend either our Ecuador Super Thinking plus Spanish seminar in September or our North Carolina International Business & Investing seminar in October. Sign up for either seminar and I will email you our Tangled Web… How to Have an Internet Business Course (offered at $299) free plus I’ll knock an extra dollar off your seminar fee…. to round up the $300 savings.

See details of the two seminars below.

Join Merri, Thomas Fischer of JGAM, our webmaster David Cross and me in North Carolina this October and enroll in our emailed course on how to have a web business free. Save $300.

Learn more about global investing, how to have an international business and diversification in Ecuador at the seminar.

Investing internationally with thought about reflexivity can improve your wealth.

See three thoughts below that can help bring you everlasting wealth.

#1: George Soros’ thoughts on international investment reflexivity and how the power of thought affects investing and business internationally.

#2: More on Ecuador’s government’s plan to take over a number of TV and radio frequencies.

#3: An update on international emerging market values…

International Investments & Reflexivity

Investing internationally can bring everlasting wealth if your logic can adapt and focus in new and meaningful ways. One way to focus your investing logic is by understanding reflexivity.

The term reflexivity was coined by George Soros. His thinking on investment markets can help investors because the philosophy has proven success.

Part one of his book “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets” shows how we as investors and as a society need to think outside the box. This section of the book makes seven points:

Point #1: Understanding world is inherently imperfect because we are part of the world.

Point #2: There are two functions in our thought… understanding the world … cognitive thought and having impact and taking advantage of the world… manipulative thought.

Point #3: These two functions counteract one another. Manipulation requires intentions and predictions which are not fact. So our beliefs and expectations can hinder our ability to see fact.

Soros writes in this book: “Take the stock market as an example People buy and sell stocks in anticipation of future stock prices, but those prices are contingent on the investors’ expectations. These expectations cannot qualify as knowledge.

Point #4: Supply and demand are not independent of people’s expectations. This means that the element of uncertainty cannot be be eliminated. Yet market theory that rules most investing and most government intervention in markets ignores this fact.

Point #5: Social events have a different structure from natural phenomena. Natural phenomena has a causal chain that connects one event directly to the next. Human affairs include participant’s views. These views affect the causal effect and the participant’s views which creates self reinforcing loops.

Point #6: Natural events happen. Participants can affect what happens next with their decisions but cannot base their decisions on true knowledge because their decisions alter the truth.

Point #7: At times reflexivity makes the abnormal normal.

Soros’ philosophy is supported by Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known exactly. The more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known. It is impossible to measure both position and velocity of a microscopic particle with any degree of accuracy or certainty. This is not only a statement about the limitations of a researcher’s ability to measure particular quantities of a system, it is a statement about the nature of the system itself… the fact that the act of measuring anything alters the very thing being measured.

This would make it seem that we cannot really gain an understanding of what will happen with any international investment or business. This is true.

However there are ways we can come closer to understanding… because we are a part of nature, which by definition makes us part of and in touch with everything.

Soros claims to have many ways to access this greater knowledge but in his book his son wrote: My father will sit down and give you theories to explain why he does this or that. But I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking, at least half of this is bullshit. I mean you know the reason he changes his position in the market is because his back starts killing him. It has nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm, and it’s his early warning sign.

Some would call it intuition, instinct, gut feeling and perhaps these are just ways of describing getting in touch with a deeper, non linear, infinite field of intelligence that all receive but few tune in.

We cannot define infinity and logical thought by definition must be linear.

Final decisions should be rational and should come from our logic… but logic by its nature must be focused on a very narrow path. This means we need a way to let our intuition tell us when we need to shift the focus of our logic on a new path outside the box.

One way the yatchaks (means to know) of the Andes and wise people everywhere is to look for signs of nature.

One term used for these signs is totems. For example, my totem is the Heron.

So let’s ask what in the heck do Herons have to do with international investments?

The answer is nothing and yet everything…

Here is an explanation about totems from Speaker for the Animals:

Heron – Aggressive – Self-Reliance – Self Determination Heron links two worlds: the waters of life—the Unconscious, and the air—the realm of the conscious mind. He feeds on fishes, which symbolize the treasures of the Unconscious mind: spiritual nourishment for the Seeker. Yet he is also a creature of the Earth, so he is a grounding influence for people who spend too much time in their minds and who are called to ‘fish’ in the waters of the unconscious.

The legs of Heron are long to “stand” the deep waters of the Unconscious: the Waters of Lethe bring sleepiness and unconsciousness if one is not awake, aware and wary. Heron is a solitary fisher; if you call upon Heron to be your own totem, you must be able to stand alone as you seek, for there is no one to call on should you step into too-deep waters.

Heron’s strength for those of us who spend too much time ‘in our minds’ is that he brings one down to Earth. With Heron as your guide, he will bring you to ground to explore life here in the physical instead of just daydreaming or losing oneself in one’s imagination or dreams.

We’re unconventional, hearing our own inner drummer. We don’t worry about ‘keeping up with the Jones’s, doing what others do, believing what others believe, valuing what others value. If there is a weakness, it is that Heron works too hard at its fishing because he is a superb ‘stalker.’ He spends long hours standing and watching for a movement in the water, and needs sometimes to ‘loosen up’ and spend more time playing, courting lady herons or just snoozing in the Sun.

Most people, as Ted Andrews says in his book Animal Speak, would never choose to live this way: “It is not a structured way, and does not have a stability or security to it. It is though, just a matter of perspective. There is security in heron medicine, for it gives the ability to do a variety of tasks. If one way doesn’t work, then another will.”

Solitary in nature, Heron people follow their own path. They learn self-reliance. This is a valuable character trait in these times of conformity and homogenization of values. Heron people can stand alone, listen to their own inner wisdom, and go their own way when everyone else is conforming to society’s commands. In this way, they build their own ways to be as well as choose their own way of doing. They are individuals first.

Herons are active in my life and I have painted one (inspired by Audobon’s Heron) that hangs in the entrance to our house.

So when the Great Blue Heron that lives on Little Horse Creek flew from our high mountain bog right over this morning, I dug out my copy of Animal Speak.

I rethought my business and investments in contrast to the symbolism of the heron. This never happens without my coming up with some worthy thought. Today it related to a partnership I was looking into. I reread Solitary in nature, Heron people follow their own path. They learn self-reliance.

This started me rethinking if Merri and I really want a partner. This started me looking at the business in a very different way.

Ecuador shamans and yatchaks use this process extensively and call it shape shifting. They place themselves in the spirit of their totem and this forces them to think about whatever subject they are concerned with in a different way… thinking like a heron or eagle or condor definitely puts you out of the box!

I did not come to any conclusions about my business decisions because I saw a heron. The fact I saw a heron caused me to sit down and use my logic to rethink my plans in a different way.

On the subject of Ecuador, a previous message shared news about the Ecuadorian government’s plan to seize a number of radio and TV stations and promised to stay tuned to what happens. I have asked many of my trusted sources in Ecuador for their opinions which we’ll share in various messages. Here are two from businessmen in Ecuador.

The first contributor was quite negative when he wrote: The first thing to take into account is that he is actually proposing control over the press not only within the countries but at a international level. What he is saying is that countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and others, should create an international committee that will oversee what the media is saying about the governments.

Ecuador is following the Venezuelan model, so if you see that Chávez is pushing for a new legislation that control the media and whatever content they have that may “threaten” the nation security, Ecuador will follow that soon. Below is what Venezuela is doing, they actually want to sensor the information that the media exposes meaning that if who oversees the media thinks that this or that information is “bad” for the country, the media or the anchor will actually face justice and may even go to jail for at least four years. They closed 32 radio stations and 2 tv stations.

Rafael Correa, the President, said that his team was about to revoke some radio frequencies depending on the outcome of a report that his government is finishing. This will mean that whatever happens will be done in the next weeks. Critics claim that this was not done on a technical level but on a political one, opening the door for the government to possibly revoke the frequencies of radio stations or TV stations that oppose the government. On this matter nothing is sure yet, but Conartel, which oversees the media, actually punished a TV station, Teleamazonas, that opposes the government. The fines were applied to that TV station one time, by law the second time they must close for about 90 days and the third time they must close forever. They censored the Simpsons also from that TV station and there was a public outcry because Conartel and the government threaten to punish them. We figure that since he started a new period, things will start to happen in the coming weeks, so far nothing is concrete yet.

He was not totally negative though and added: One thing although is that the government is not talking about taking over TV stations or radio stations, but revoking the frequencies. But take this into account, the government actually took over some private TV stations, they got them as part of a debt that Filanbanco, a bank, had with the government back in the crisis of 1999. This appears to be a separate thing. On the same takeover they got two TV stations plus a newspaper El Telégrafo.

The second contributor feels good about this new and wrote: Hi Gary, I have lived here full time for over 9 years and have seen the corruption and I believe that Correa’s intentions are more good than bad. I believe that many things that he does for a good reason while he is working on removing corruption are turned into bad press by the opposition. The same opposition that stole from the people of Ecuador throughout history, and want to regain control and steal from them again. I think that the Wall Street Journal article you wrote about says a lot. It says to me that he is going through the licenses one by one to find out if the licenses were granted illegally through corruption and payoffs. If they were granted legally, no problem…..and if they weren’t we are going to suspend the license and you will have a chance to prove that you obtained it legally. A year or so ago, two television stations were taken over, with the same uproar in the press. But the truth is that they were taken over because the owners of those two stations were the owners of one of the banks that went under when they took all of the depositors money and went to Miami to live happily ever after. Well, Correa went after their assets ( a first for a president to go after someone like this) and some of those assets were the two tv stations. So we need to look past what the press says as many of them are owned by this type of opposition. I see Correa in a similar boat that President Vicente Fox of Mexico was in a few years ago, when His party was elected after over 100 years of severe corruption by the ruling party and he wanted to remove that corruption. He was also fought along the way by the opposition that wanted the power back to again steal from the people. It is a very difficult job that Correa has ahead of him, and I hope that he can succeed and become possibly the best president that Ecuador has ever had. Regards.

We’ll share more comments about international investments in Ecuador in upcoming messages… but let’s use our logic here to look some more at international investments in all emerging markets.

One problem many investors have when using non linear approaches to international investments is that they forget the final logical step…. which is to come back and end in the logical mode.

Thinking outside the box does not mean we should just ignore what is in the box. We want to use our logic to reflect on “in-the-box-stuff” in different ways. If we do not know what’s in the box then we won’t know when we are out of the box. Boxes exist for a reason. At times the box.. assuming the box is the norm… but Soros says “is abnormal.” We need to conclude if the box is normal or abnormal which dictates that we do examine what’s in the box.

Thinking outside the box does not mean we should abandon logic.

So I may sit down and rethink everything… or something I am doing when I see a heron… but I add that to my traditional logical thought.

This is one reason why we regularly review Michael Keppler’s major and emerging market value analysis. Kepler is a statistical genius and guru…. very institutional… logical mathematical .

What I search for are strokes of intuition supported by such logic.

This morning for example their were three crows grazing our front yard.

Stock market investors sometimes refer to three crows as a pattern of successive declining stock prices over three days often identified by overlapping candlestick patterns. Three crows are often seen as a warning of a period of powerful selling pressure on the stock market.

This does not mean I rushed out and sold all my shares. It does mean I looked at logical data like Keppler’s value analysis to see if the logic supports the intuition.

Here is an excerpt from our last multi currency portfolios update that shows Keppler’s mathematical logic.

Emerging Markets equities recorded their highest ever quarterly return. In the second quarter 2009, the MSCI Emerging Markets Total Return Index gained 34.7 % in US dollars and 27.5 % in euros.

This brings the year-to-date total return of the global Emerging Markets benchmark to 36 % in US dollars and 34.8 % in euros.

All markets covered here were up last quarter. Hungary (+69.7 %), India (+59.8 %) and Turkey (+56.6 %) had the most impressive returns.

Peru (+11.2 %), Israel (+15.8 %) and Morocco (+19.6 %) came in at the bottom of the performance range with what would be very desirable double-digit returns under normal circumstances.

In the second quarter 2009, the Emerging Markets Top Value Model Portfolio, which invests according to the Top Value Strategy and assumes index returns for each national market included in the strategy, gained 45.5 % in US dollars and 37.7 % in euros, outperforming the benchmark by 10.8 percentage points in US dollars and by 10.2 percentage points in euros.

There were two changes in our performance ratings last quarter: Korea was downgraded to “Sell” from “Neutral” and Brazil was upgraded to “Buy” from “Sell”.

Whether you plan to have international investments, an international business or non at all, it will become increasingly important to think outside the box as change accelerates and new social and economic paradigms are required. Whether you use backaches, gut feel, hunches, totems or meditation and prayer… new ways to focus your logic an help you have everlasting wealth.

Gary

Combining good international investing with the greatest asset of all, the ability to earn wherever you live, brings everlasting wealth.

A clear mind and healthy body are also a vital assets… plus a second language is a powerful diversification tool.

This is why I am willing to pay you $300 to attend either our Ecuador Super Thinking plus Spanish seminar in September or our North Carolina International Business & Investing seminar in October. Sign up for either seminar and I will email you our Tangled Web… How to Have an Internet Business Course (offered at $299) free plus I’ll knock an extra dollar off your seminar fee…. to round up the $300 savings.

See details of the two seminar below.

Thomas Fischer teaching at our IBEZ seminar.

Join Merri, Thomas Fischer of JGAM, our webmaster David Cross and me in North Carolina this October and enroll in our emailed course on how to have a web business free. Save $300.

Learn more about global investing, how to have an international business and diversification in Ecuador at the seminar.

Here is an email for a recent seminar delegate: Hello Gary and Merri, I have wanted to write to tell you how much we enjoyed your IBEZ seminar, and to thank you both for inviting us all into your lovely home for lunch last Sunday. Merri, again, thank you for taking the time to prepare foods especially for me; they were delicious, and I appreciate your effort! Thank you for a thoroughly enjoyable, very well done, stimulating seminar. I came away not only with all the notes provided, but also with many ideas which I plan to begin working on now that we are back home. Wishing you all the best,

Or join us in Ecuador and learn more about living and retiring in Ecuador.

We take delegates on our Ecuador seminars to Otavalo markets. Many buy enough goods to resell in North America to pay for their entire trip. Ecuador tiles are one great product attract many international businesses.

Here are comments from one seminar delegate about the followup from our course: Thanks so much. I have been following the advice in your Multi Currency Course/International Investing monthly and have added selected suggested funds from your lists which are available in my Fidelity IRA. Even though my transactions are in SMALL amounts for stock and ETFs I am almost back up to the total invested amount prior to the stock market dive of last year. Your emails have given incentive to keep diversified investments when I know other people are selling out.

Yesterday’s message on lifestyle and Ecuador diversification was really backed up by Uncle Sam quickly!

Whether you retire in Ecuador or anywhere outside your home.. you want diversification. See why below!

One benefit of retiring in Ecuador is that it can help the poor there.

Yesterday’s article worried about weather change being called a threat to national security and wondered if this concept could further erode human rights.

I never imagined the very next day we would have even more concern… yet an article by James Risen in the New York Times entitled: “U.S. to Hunt Down Afghan Drug Lords Tied to Taliban” must give us pause.

Here is an excerpt: WASHINGTON — Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional study to be released this week.

United States Marines on a recent raid in Helmand Province. Under a new policy, drug traffickers are subject to being killed.

United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law. They also said the move is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.

Part of our work at Meson de las Flores was to continue a policy at our hotel to feed the poor. We always keep a pot of nutritious stew on the stove and our less fortunate are welcome any time of the day. Above is one of our regular guests.

The problem is that the erosion of rights creeps upon us in small steps… like income tax.When to raise revenue to fund the Civil War, an income tax was introduced in the United States with the Revenue Act of 1861. It was a flat rate tax of 3% on annual income above $800.

When the idea was contested on concerns that the tax, once established, would grow, one Congressman stated that there was no way the population would let the tax ever be higher than 3%. Yet a year later flat tax this was replaced with a graduated tax of 3-5% on income above $600 in the Revenue Act of 1862.

This act made tax temporary ending in 1866. Regretfully, perhaps, in 1866, income tax collections reached their highest point ever, over $310 million. This made the tax popular and today we can see the effects of the small steps… one freedom eroded at a time.

So where does the legal right to kill drug dealers lead? If it is legal to kill Afghan drug dealers to disrupt the flow of drug money that finance insurgency, what about drug dealers in Mexico that are financing insurgency in the US? Can we kill them too? If so, how about if we catch them in the US, can we kill them there? If so what if they are US citizens or residents? Can we still kill them? Can the army become involved… in the name of national security? Do they have to check a person’s passport before they shoot the drone at them?

These are tough calls, but somehow making it legal for the army to kill non combatants seems like a small step in the wrong direction.

Merri and I visiting a village that our foundation supports… helping the old and supporting the young by improving their school. This is a fulfilling retirement activity.

Yet loss of rights is not the only reason we might want to live or retire in Ecuador or elsewhere, full or part time, for diversification.

The rising cost of living makes it difficult to retire in the West. Plus though taxes are rising… benefits for those who retire are not.

A recent BBC article “Pension age could rise further” shows how the rot in England has grown. An excerpt says: The state pension retirement age could be increased further, the UK’s pensions regulator has told the BBC.

David Norgrove said rising life expectancy meant millions of people would “undoubtedly” have to wait longer in future to draw a state pension.

People will not save as much for retirement as in the past, with many people “frightened” to do so, he said.

The state pension age is due to rise to 68, and Pensions Minister Angela Eagle said there were no plans to raise that.

Currently, the state pension age is 60 for women and 65 for men, but four years ago Lord Turner published a report calling for it to rise to 68 for everyone by 2044.

But Mr Norgrove said he thought it would end up higher.

Mr Norgrove said: “People are going to have to work longer, partly because we’re not going, as a nation, to save as much for retirement as we did in the past.”He added: “The government’s recent legislation is increasing the state retirement age progressively to 68. I think it will end up higher than that.”

Another reason to retire in Ecuador is that business opportunity seems to be rising there as it falls in the north.

A recent USA Today article. “Business bankruptcies up 240% since 2006”, by Christine Dugas outlines a US retirement and lifestyle problem. Here is an excerpt of that article:

Entrepreneurship and new small businesses are supposed to lead us out of the recession, just as they have in prior downturns, right? Sure.

Your neighbor’s grand idea will persuade a bank to lend her start-up money; she’ll open for business in six weeks; and money will immediately flow from customers to her to her employees. Taxes will be paid, and the national economic engine will hum effortlessly in no time. If only.

Today shows a different reality: Commercial bankruptcies are surging. Fewer people are starting small businesses, and firms already open are struggling under changing consumer habits, a lack of funding options and tougher bankruptcy laws. If a nationwide trend seen since January holds true, more than 300 businesses will file for bankruptcy today alone.

The first five months of this year have shown a 52% increase in the total number of commercial bankruptcy filings (36,106) compared with the same period last year (23,829), according to the Automated Access to Court Electronic Records. On average thus far in 2009, some 350 commercial enterprises file for bankruptcy daily an increase of 240% from 2006, the first year after the bankruptcy law was changed.

Major corporate failures, like GM and Chrysler, flash across front pages and websites. But the vast majority of commercial bankruptcies, which are not separated by size of firm by data keepers, are filed by entrepreneurs and small-business owners, says Robert Lawless, professor of law at University of Illinois.

Troubling for the economy, say Lawless and Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association, is the double-whammy of fewer start-ups and increasing bankruptcies.

“In the past, small-business formation increased in a recession because people had self-employment thrust upon them,” he says. “One avenue out of economic hard times self-employment has become less attractive, because the bankruptcy law is less forgiving” and there are fewer options for those entrepreneurs to get bank loans or to find funding elsewhere.

Small business is considered the backbone of the economy. In the past, new businesses led economic recoveries, McCracken says. Small businesses those with fewer than 500 employees make up half of the gross domestic product and account for most job growth.

Problems from the devastated housing market, overall recession and suffering major industries all funnel down to small businesses, especially those that supply the troubled corporations.

Household spending cutbacks reach far, too. Dual-income families who are now single-income may no longer need or be able to afford child care, so many of those services are going out of business, says Lester Thompson, a bankruptcy lawyer in Dayton. Sporting goods stores and lawn-mowing services also have struggled.

Small-business bankruptcy filings jumped the most in the Los Angeles and Chicago metro areas, according to Equifax. But even smaller areas of the country are experiencing a big increase.

Many small businesses owe so much money to creditors that there is no future. Such owners often file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and shut their businesses for good.

The credit crunch is a major contributor to the rise in filings.

Loan dollar volume from the U.S. Small Business Administration has increased 35% since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed on Feb. 17, according to the SBA. Even so, a National Federation of Independent Business trend report states that in May the percentage of business owners reporting that loans are harder to get rose to 16%, the highest reading since the 1980-82 recession.

With that reality, and loath to dip into their retirement savings, struggling small-business owners have few options other than bankruptcy. When the bankruptcy law changed in 2005 it was mostly aimed at curbing abuse of personal bankruptcy filing. But it also singled out small businesses for harsher treatment, and those changes did not apply to larger corporations, Lawless says.

Bankruptcy is still the only option for many small-business owners who are hanging by a thread.

This is why the idea of living or retiring in Ecuador or elsewhere, at least part time, for diversification and global earning potential makes sense because opportunity is growing elsewhere.

Nothing makes our retirement problems diminish faster than helping those who have even greater needs.

An excerpt from a recent Wall Street Journal article “Ecuador’s Business Confidence Index Up” by Mercedes Alvaro says: QUITO (Dow Jones)–Ecuador’s Business Confidence Index, measured by Deloitte and Touche, surged 5% in May to 93.2 points, compared with May 2008, the company said in its monthly report.

Deloitte said the index recovered by 31% in May against April, returning to the levels registered during the last quarter of 2008.

The Index’ recovery is largely due to the waning perception among executives of a deterioration of the country’s economic and political conditions, it said.

Deloitte found that 45% of those surveyed are less optimistic about the economy compared with April, while 52% perceive no change.

The slow but steady increase in oil prices and the revival of the global economy are grounds for expecting that the economy in Ecuador could improve by year’s end or in early 2010.

Questioned about the performance of their businesses, 34% said they had lower sales compared to the previous months and 39% reported revenues down on the same period of last year.

The survey found 20% reported a reduction in their workforce compared to the previous month.

Around 57% of the business leaders surveyed said that the country’s socio-economic situation makes it difficult to attract foreign investment.

We can see below why diversification remains important even if we retire in Ecuador.

Just because we want to live or retire in Ecuador does not mean that Ecuador does not have its own creeping erosion of rights problems as well. An August 3 news.Yahoo article says: Correa: Ecuador to take over radio, TV stations. QUITO, Ecuador – Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa says “many” radio and TV frequencies will revert to state control due to what he’s calling irregularities. The president has been at war with Ecuador’s news media since taking office in January 2007. He has called TV stations and newspapers corrupt and mediocre, and twice fined an opposition broadcaster. Correa did not specify Monday what sort of abuses or irregularities broadcasters have committed. Nor did he name any alleged offenders.

An August 5th update on this matter in the Wall Street Journal says: Ecuador Govt Braces For Reaction To Radio, TV Takeovers

QUITO (Dow Jones)–Ecuador’s government is expecting “strong reactions” to a report that will determine which television and radio stations will revert to state control.

Antonio Garcia, chairman of Ecuador’s National Radio and Television Board, said Wednesday that a report will be issued next week on which stations the government will take over.

President Rafael Correa’s government has alleged that a number of stations received their broadcasting concessions illegitimately and said that “many” would revert to state hands.

Correa’s announcement came on the heels of the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the Ecuadorian president’s close ally, shutting down 34 privately-owned radio stations last weekend.

An initial report by an Ecuadorian government commission last year found that 236 of 1,637 frequencies had obtained their concessions illegally.

Garcia brushed off what he called “alarmist accounts” that all radio and television stations will revert to state control and that the government is looking at them on a case-by-case basis.”

He said that some media outlets, however, are “trying to misinform” viewers and listeners.

A clear mind and healthy body are also a vital assets… plus a second language is a powerful diversification tool.

This is why I am willing to pay you $300 to attend either our Ecuador Super Thinking plus Spanish seminar in September or our North Carolina International Business & Investing seminar in October. Sign up for either seminar and I will email you our Tangled Web… How to Have an Internet Business Course (offered at $299) free plus I’ll knock an extra dollar off your seminar fee…. to round up the $300 savings.

See details of the two seminar below.

Here is Thomas Fischer talking with seminar delegates at a recent international investing course that I co hosted with Jyske Global Asset Management.

Join Merri, Thomas Fischer of JGAM, our webmaster David Cross and me in North Carolina this October and enroll in our emailed course on how to have a web business free. Save $300.

Learn more about global investing, how to have an international business and diversification in Ecuador at the seminar.